


just one of those things (here's hoping we meet again)

by wombatpop



Category: Fast & Furious (Movies), Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Almost Kiss, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Canon Era, Car Chases, Chance Meetings, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Minor Character Death, No Smut, Organized Crime, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period-Typical Sexism, Sexual Tension, Strangers to Lovers, Tags Contain Spoilers, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 26,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25164472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wombatpop/pseuds/wombatpop
Summary: On every other Friday afternoon, when he’s in London, you can find Deckard Shaw pensively sitting in his usual spot at the bar of his favoured pub, nursing his first drink of the day. On this day, as he sits at the perpetually sticky bar contentedly sipping his pint, a stranger enters. He offers Shaw a job, beginning a journey that will bring him and Poppy Capello together and force them apart.-Ever wondered who that women in Shaw's bed at the beginning of Hobbs & Shaw was? Here is her story.
Relationships: Deckard Shaw/Origional Female Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	1. Day Drinking

**Author's Note:**

> Please note this story includes a toxic / implied abusive relationship (involving a secondary character, not deckard shaw). i'll be putting any relevant cw at the start of the chapters
> 
> big thanks to my betas [nix1327](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nix1327/pseuds/nix1327) and [girlafraidinacoma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlafraidinacoma/pseuds/girlafraidinacoma) for improving the story tenfold!
> 
> make sure to smash that kudos if you enjoy the story :)

On every other Friday afternoon, when he’s in London, you can find Deckard Shaw pensively sitting in his usual spot at the bar of his favoured pub, nursing his first drink of the day. It’s a traditional pub, all smoke-stained oak and dark carpet, one of the few true locals left in a city increasingly partial to glass high-rises. The bartender knows him, not by name but by face, as he knows all of the regulars who loyally visit.

On this day, as he sits at the perpetually sticky bar contentedly sipping his pint, a stranger enters. He looks out of place, the pub almost empty but for a few elderly men in their usual chairs. The man walks up to the bar confidently and takes a seat adjacent to Shaw, who observes him silently.

“Bit early for a drink innit?” The man says. Shaw’s stony expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t recognise the stranger, but can only assume that he’s talking to Shaw for the reason that most strangers these days do: the man’s got a job for him.

The old men sipping liquor in the leather armchairs glance over, but almost immediately lose interest, turning back to their chess game. Shaw waits until they return to their boards before answering.

“You just here to tell me off for day drinking?” Shaw doesn’t make eye contact, firmly focusing on the frothy edges of his beer. The stranger is unsurprised by his directness.

“No.” At this point, the man leans forward, lowering his voice incrementally. “The Brunt’s have been stepping on some toes lately. Danny Brunt has taken something that my employer wants. A hard drive. We need you to retrieve it. Eliminate Brunt if you have to.”

“And who is your employer?” The man stays silent. Shaw presses. “I like to know who I’m working for.”

The man glances around him, as if to check for eavesdroppers, and lowers his voice even further. “Dyce.” Shaw nods, considering. Henry Dyce is a powerful and influential voice with connections to several crime families. Having previously worked for a mutual acquaintance, Shaw finds himself leaning towards accepting the job. 

“What’s in it for me?” Shaw takes another sip of his pint. The man reaches into his coat pocket and discreetly places an envelope full of cash on the bar counter.

“That’s a start.” Shaw picks up the envelope and runs his thumb through the wad of cash.

Finally, he replies. “Deal.”

“Go to Alta. See Henry.” The man stands, exiting the pub as conspicuously as he entered it.


	2. Alta

Alta is glamorous, a flashy gambling club hidden in a hole in the wall down a dimly lit alley. All manner of sins could be achieved inside Alta’s walls. For the criminally inclined, it was a regular place to meet and conspire.

Poppy arrives at the club as she usually does, in the back of a shiny car driven by the employee of some rich and corrupt figure she’s managed to coerce. Though many eyes turn to her as she makes her way to her usual table, empty and waiting at the back of the room, she divides her attention strategically. Some receive waves, nods, or smiles, some get a more thorough greeting depending on their importance to the Brunt’s, and to her.

She’s at Alta most nights, eavesdropping on men who forget that pretty women have ears. Sometimes she’ll draw the rich into Brunt-run gambling, where they are guaranteed to lose. It’s not what she envisioned as an aspiring thief—to end up as the Brunt’s personal puppet, a glorified fence—but it pays the bills. And with the Brunt’s, saying “No” is not an option.

She’s sitting at her usual table when she notices an unfamiliar face enter the room. It’s not unusual for strangers to enter the bar, but for some reason he catches her eye. His features are as sharp as his suit, as are his eyes as he scans the room. She watches as he walks deliberately across the room, weaving expertly through millionaire arms dealers to make his way over to the bar.

He orders from the bartender, and a bourbon is set down as he turns to survey the room again. His posture is remarkably rigid; he doesn’t make a single movement that doesn’t seem purposeful, considered. His deliberation is what distinguishes him from those around him—those who are rendered still by worry, or those who languish in a lack of movement. She’d observed the same penchant for immobility in trained assassins, military men turned criminals, anyone with training to kill and experience in killing.

He’s intriguing, but not enough to distract her from her night’s plan. As she draws her attention from the mystery man, she sees Demetri, the son of a rich, white-collar criminal, enter the bar. She was expecting him, and he’s right on cue.

Demetri’s her age, but he seems younger somehow, less mature and more naive. He believes her too readily when she promises him the world in gold, luring him to one of the most exclusive poker games around, just so he can lose miserably. His skills are weak, but her discreet communication to the Brunt-sponsored players seals his fate.

Still, at the end of the night she gets him to promise to return. With a bat of her eyelashes and an assurance of future dealings with the Brunts, it’s enough to sell him on an evening where he lost millions.

As she leaves, she finds herself searching for a face in the crowd without consciously deciding to do so. She meets his eyes only briefly, less than half a second, as he speaks lowly to men she recognises. His gaze is piercing through the commotion, and he grabs her attention in a way that no one else does. It’s as if he had reached his hand out and pulled her toward him. Still, she doesn’t shift her trajectory, and she leaves him behind as she walks out the door.


	3. Henry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: alcohol

Shaw manages to make a few connections that first night, inching his way closer to the Brunts with each conversation. But he isn’t rushing. Rumours and hearsay refer to the Brunts as possessing something big, something sellable. Of course, no one has any details close to specific. But it’s just enough information for Shaw to confirm that Danny likely has what his client believes he does.

Shaw comes back a few days later, finally introducing himself to Henry Dyce, the patriarch of the Dyce crime family.

“Shaw! Saw you here the other night. Playing hard to get, are you?” Dyce laughs heartily at his own joke, and Shaw sits across from him. His relative lack of intoxication is a stark contrast to Dyce’s drunken amusement.

Once he has finished laughing, Dyce clears his throat and speaks, uncharacteristically coherent. “Listen, Danny is looking for muscle. It’s for this deal he has coming up. I’ll put in a good word for you, say you’ve done some work for a friend a while back. It’s up to you to do the rest.”

Shaw nods serenely. Dyce, having conveyed his instructions, returns to drunken garbling. “Have a drink, man! You need to relax.”

Dyce pushes a glass full of a mystery liquid towards Shaw, who considers refusing, but decides it’s less suspicious to drink than to remain sober. He drinks less than anyone else at the table that night, but still manages enough for a noticeable hangover the following morning.

A couple of hours into the night, he realises why the room feels different to his previous visit, like the club’s been empty since he arrived. He saw her watching him just like he saw everything else that happened in the room the other night. She was beautiful, but more than that she was charismatic, working rich men into putty under her hands. Shaw could see something in her eyes, a sharpness that lets him know she is not to be underestimated. Even though her table is occupied, her absence is noticeable. Finally, he works up the Dutch courage to ask Dyce about her.

“Ah, Poppy.” Dyce smiles a red, blushing grin and laughs from the depths of his beer-cushioned belly. Shaw smiles for the sake of Dyce, though he doesn’t laugh.

“Penelope, is her name. Capello. You might’ve heard of her father,” Dyce continues. Shaw nods: Mark Capello, one of the most notorious thieves in London’s history, finally falling at the hands of police when a bank robbery went wrong.

“Yes, don’t blink when you’re around Poppy, or you could lose an arm and not even realise it!” Though Dyce’s point is muddied by his incoherence, Shaw knows what he means. Who knows how much that stranger lost in the Brunt’s back room games.

“And don’t bother trying anything with her. Danny’s got his eye on her and any other guy is risking his neck.” Dyce continues speaking, imploring Shaw to have another drink, but Shaw is preoccupied.

Danny Brunt is ruthless, notorious for his womanising tendencies that usually result in sticky ends for his conquests. The man also holds one hell of a grudge. He was going to be a difficult man to get. Especially if Poppy Capello is what stands between Shaw and the hard drive.


	4. Brunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: abusive relationship

Brunch is Danny Brunt’s meeting of choice. He hates an early morning and prefers to save his evenings for pleasure over business, so brunch is the perfect time to talk hard figures. Poppy and Danny meet for brunch once a fortnight, at Danny’s request. It’s her opportunity to fill him in on the goings-on she has observed, but more than that, it’s a chance for him to covet her attention, to leer over her for an hour.

Danny kisses her on the cheek when he arrives. Poppy is early, as usual. She would call it respect, but actually, she’s simply afraid of the consequences of losing his favour, just like everyone else. Danny’s love is fickle and fleeting, and she knows she’s lucky to have held onto it for this long. Despite her disdain for his arrogance and quick temper, she would be lying if she said he didn’t make her feel special.

Poppy launches into enthusiastic small talk. She smiles so much at these things, her cheeks always ache afterwards. Danny compliments her dress—he always compliments her dress—and his gaze feels like she’s being drenched in honey.

After about half an hour, the conversation shifts from its usual course. It goes from Danny taking every opportunity to brag about himself into something worth listening to.

“I’ve recently acquired something very exciting.” Danny takes a finger sandwich off of his plate and takes a large bite. Poppy has a couple in front of her as well, but she has hardly eaten.

“What is it?” She plays along with Danny’s dramatic pause. He leans in, whispering excitedly.

“It’s an experiment from MI6. A design for a germ, more powerful than any other.” He leans back, smugly reveling in her impressed surprise.

“Danny, that’s huge.” He’s still smiling, radiating self-satisfaction.

“It’ll pay, that’s for sure.” Danny pushes the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and chews. She’s still smiling, but her mind is racing at a thousand miles an hour. Something this big could give her the leverage against MI6 to get immunity and take Danny down.

...take Danny down? Is that what she wants to do?

The Brunts have been so good to her since her father died. Yes, Danny has stifled her freedom in some ways, keeping her in the Brunt’s circle and closer to him. And she can’t look another man in the eye without worrying he may disappear mysteriously. And she’s constantly walking on eggshells around him just in case his favour dissipates and she finds herself suddenly accident prone, or suicidal, or taking a long holiday like several of Danny’s previous flings.

But it would never work. There’s no way that she could steal whatever he has and escape without him realising she had taken it. And besides, what would she do once she had it? If she turns herself in she’s just as likely to be thrown in jail as let off the hook.

Danny interrupts her thoughts and she stifles a flinch. “Will you let me know if anyone’s sniffing around?” There’s a split second of whiplash at the topic change, but she’s soon found her footing again. Her smile is so sweet it makes her feel sick, plastered over the resentment, the apprehension she feels.

“Of course, Danny.” Danny swallows his sandwich and takes a large gulp of water, smacking his lips and grinning.

“Great.”


	5. Poppy

It’s only a few days before she sees the stranger again. He’s integrated himself a little more comfortably into the ecosystem now, shaking hands with some, nodding to others. Poppy watches as he makes his way over to a booth populated by Henry Dyce, chatting like they’re old friends. Perhaps they are.

Not all the dirt Poppy gathers makes its way back to the Brunts. But she is always listening.

After a while the mystery man approaches the bar and she excuses herself from her table filled with acquaintances she can happily abandon to join him. He doesn’t acknowledge her as she approaches, but she notices him glance her way as she collects a glass of champagne.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” she says, turning to him and putting on her best smile. “Poppy.” She offers her hand for him to shake.

“Just Poppy?” He asks, taking her hand in his, holding it gently. His voice is deep and smooth like velvet, his skin warm and soft against her own.

“Just Poppy.” She focuses on keeping her voice low and even, lest it betray her rising heart rate. Twisting her hand, he kisses the back of it, all the while never breaking eye contact. It feels like he takes a full minute before he’s upright again.

“Deckard.” Her hand feels cool when he releases it. She’s conscious that she’s standing closer to him than is generally acceptable to stand next to a total stranger, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable.

“What brings you to Alta? Business or pleasure?” She relishes the minute changes in expression her speech brings about in him—shifts in the muscles in his forehead and eyes that are only just perceptible.

“We’ll see where the night takes me.” His eyes haven’t left hers since they began speaking and she feels as though she should look away, too used to men’s eyes wandering as she speaks to them. But instead, she holds his attention, revels in the intentness with which he maintains her gaze.

“Good answer. But I do still have one question.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “What is the name of your tailor? This suit is excellent.”

“A gentleman never reveals his secrets.” He replies with a hint of amusement, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Not even to a gentlewoman?” She steps towards him another inch, now decidedly too close for sensible conversation. A lesser man would step back, or forward—snake his arm around her waist, arrogant enough to expect that it’s wanted. But he doesn’t do either.

“Perhaps. Are you a gentlewoman?” He’s just tall enough for Poppy to have to tilt her head up slightly at this distance when they speak. He’s playing along, but she can tell he’s holding back, making an effort to keep something under the current of the conversation.

She shrugs slightly, as if she’s considering his question, before finally settling on, “I can be.”

“Would the men you lead into the Brunt’s gambling dens say that?” She smiles and hesitates to answer. Of course he would have noticed something few are supposed to be aware of. He’s smirking too, smug at his own observance.

“You’d have to ask them,” she says, attempting to shut down the question but answering it more than she intended to.

“Mm.” Deckard nods, and cradles his liquor, leaning his elbow against the bar. “I’ve been warned about talking to you. Should I be concerned?”

She presses her lips together and lifts her champagne flute off the bar, holding it in a way that mimics Shaw’s own body language. She knows exactly what, or who, he is referring to.

“No. _Talking_ isn’t a death sentence.” The corners of his mouth twitch into a smirk, and she can feel herself begin to blush, heat rising as they smile at each other. She swears he leans toward her, the space between them wholly inappropriate, before someone from her table calls her name.

She turns to see her companions beckoning her with drunken enthusiasm. Deckard looks amused when she returns her gaze to him.

“Duty calls.” He says, nodding over her shoulder. His tone is teasing, and she swallows her heart as it jumps into her throat.

“I’m sure I’ll see you again.” She manages to say, moving to leave.

“You will.”

-

Shaw takes a breath as she walks away, the room suddenly expanding and cooling in her absence. The rest of the world seemed to blur and disappear during their conversation, and he finds his experiences leaving him unprepared for being held by her gaze for so long, though it was only moments. He takes a large gulp from his glass, tearing his eyes away from where she sits, laughing with others he can tell she hardly cares for, and focusing his attention back on the room.

After a minute or so of perusal, another man enters, and the atmosphere becomes tense underneath the festivities.

Danny Brunt enters without fanfare, though all eyes rest upon him as he makes his way around to each person in the room. His suit seems designed to look expensive, gold cufflinks glinting in the lights of the bar. There’s a jittery, nervous energy to those who wait for Danny to greet them, even those who seem as though they are old friends of his. People act as if they’re not quite sure what to expect of him.

Danny sits with Henry Dyce for several minutes before Shaw notices them turn to look at him, Dyce gesturing and talking in his direction. Danny seems to agree with something, and they both rise to approach Shaw at the bar.

“Deckard Shaw? Danny Brunt.” Danny holds out his hand and they shake. Danny’s grip is strong, designed for intimidation. Shaw doesn’t speak, letting Danny continue. “Henry here has just been telling me about some great work you did a few years ago. You in the market for some more?”

“If you’ve got some, I’ll take it.” Danny smiles—a smile at once charming and cold, a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, a smile that leaves its recipients uneasy.

“Good man. Come to my office.” Danny nods to Henry, who dutifully returns to his booth, and walks towards a door at the back of the room, expecting Shaw to follow.

The door leads to a short hallway with what could be an entrance to the kitchen. The other, Danny opens to reveal his office, tidy yet highly populated with objects.

Danny gestures for Shaw to sit, settling heavily in his own chair behind a large wooden desk. He stares for several seconds, seeming to consider Shaw, who stares back with resolve. Finally, Danny speaks.

“I’m in need of a man like you, Deckard. Experienced, efficient, reliable.” Shaw nods shallowly, and Danny considers again, tapping his fingers on the surface of his desk. Shaw resists the urge to scope the room further, knowing his every movement is being watched.

“Henry told me I could trust you, is he correct?” Danny’s tone, previously amiable, goes suddenly darker, his charm dissolving into stony seriousness.

“Yes.” Shaw responds to his solemnity in kind, and Danny seems to finalise his judgement.

“I’ve recently had a very valuable asset come into my possession. I need someone serious to protect it. You’ll be well compensated for your time.”

“My services are yours.” Danny smiles, his grimness disappearing as soon as it appeared.

“That’s what I like to hear!” All of a sudden he’s cheerful again. “I’m meeting the buyer on Friday, so come back for dinner at Alta and I’ll let you know when it’s time to go.” He talks like they’re arranging coffee, or a sleepover.

Danny jumps up and shakes Shaw’s hand again, sending him out of the room unceremoniously.

-

Shaw leaves, shooting a loaded look back to Poppy as he does. Following behind him, Danny circles back to Poppy’s table.

“Poppy, you look more gorgeous every time I see you.” She stands and Danny plants a kiss on her cheek.

“Danny, you’re too kind.” They stay standing, and Danny curls his arm around her waist, speaking lowly in her ear.

“What do you think of Shaw?” For a second she’s concerned Danny’s jealousy has risen, until he clarifies, “is he clean?”

She nods. “Yeah, nothing’s come up.” Danny seems skeptical.

“I’m not sold on him, but Henry’s so convinced. Keep your ear to the ground for me.” He takes a second to frown, but his mood soon shifts.

“Also, I mentioned the other day that I’d secured an asset.” He’s got one hand on her arm now, turning her to face him, his voice slowly progressing toward his customary smugness. “When I meet the buyer on Friday, I want you to come with me.”

She stammers for a moment, taken aback at his request. He reads her surprise as delight.

“You deserve it, I know you want to get more involved. Don’t you?” He continues. She’s sure he’s testing her—Danny is always testing—but like always, there’s no room to say no.

So she says, “Yes”, and thanks him before going back to her night of facades, her hope of freedom dissolving. Being present at the purchase means there’s no chance of making a run for it this time, not that there was much chance before.

Her fate is sealed.


	6. Friday

Friday: the night of the drop. Shaw arrives earlier than usual. Alta is somewhat empty compared to his previous visits. It’s his first time seeing her by herself, usually entertaining a variety of people throughout the night. He doesn’t hesitate in walking up to her, knowing it’s his last night in the bar, and, at some level, out of trust towards her.

“Is Danny here?” He asks, and she smiles.

“Hello to you too. No, he’s not here yet.” She gestures for him to sit, and he does. He orders a drink, and there’s a second of quiet where she sips hers. Whether naive overprotectiveness or insurmountable curiosity, Shaw can’t help but ask a question he’d been sitting on. He is certain this line of questioning will fail, but he is determined to make an attempt. He knows the hallmarks of a relationship that isn’t mutually beneficial.

“Are you and him..?” She looks blankly at Shaw for a moment, then screws up her face in disgust.

“Only in his dreams.” She mouths, almost inaudible. “But don’t tell him that.” Deckard returns her smile, but as usual, it’s only half genuine. The other half is preoccupied with analysing the situation.

“I’m surprised you had room to seat me,” he says, deftly moving the conversation forward. She’s more playful tonight, perhaps out of nervousness. She must know Danny is doing something big.

“Don’t resent me for my popularity, Deckard,” she says facetiously. Though it shouldn’t be unusual, he’s not used to people calling him by his first name. Hearing it out of her mouth is strangely pleasing.

“Who said I resent it?” She looks at him quizzically, and he continues, subtly directing the conversation in a roundabout way back to Danny. “Isn’t it hard, knowing who to trust?”

It seems like a strange question from him, and she hesitates to credit it to raw emotion more than him digging for something she can’t pinpoint yet. She chooses not to question it. “I find I can read people pretty well.”

He nods and considers her response for a moment. Watching him, something she previously felt he was holding back seems more pressing. It’s like he’s thinking about it more, though he seems as good as her at putting on a mask.

“Some, of course, are more difficult than others,” he says.

“How so?” She tilts her head to the side in interest. Shaw seems to be gradually inching closer to her around the booth.

“Well, with a woman as practiced as yourself, it’s hard to tell what’s going on behind the scenes.” His statement could be interpreted a number of ways, but she decides to take it at face value.

“Perhaps that’s how she likes it,” she teases, taking another sip of her drink.

Shaw’s drink arrives as he speaks. “I don’t doubt it.”

“I’m sure you think yourself difficult to read as well.” She deflects the conversation from herself as Shaw swallows a large mouthful of drink from his glass.

“I can only try.” He, too, seems averse to being scrutinised too closely.

“Well, keep up the effort, would be my advice,” she jokes, and his interest piques. He sets down his glass back to the table in offence.

“Come on, I can’t be that transparent.” His brow is furrowed, his offence seeming more real than anything he had said to her previously, which only fuels her amusement.

“Only to a woman as practiced as me.” She smiles, self-satisfied, and he leans forward as if to allow her to inspect him.

“What can you tell about me, Poppy?” She leans forward too, until her mouth is next to his ear. Their faces are so close that she can feel his warm breath on her neck, sharp with alcohol.

“I don’t know who you are, but I can tell you’ve got an ulterior motive,” she mutters, low enough that no bystanders could possibly hear. She sees his posture stiffen just slightly, only noticeable from her intimate position. He pulls back, just enough that he can look her in the eye.

“A man can’t have an ulterior motive?” His gaze flickers momentarily down to her lips, but she suspects it was intentional, an attempt to sell his flirtation so she drops her questions. She doesn’t.

“You know what I mean. Who are you working for?” She still talks with a cheerful tone and a smile, but there’s an edge to her voice that lets him know she’s serious.

“Most of what I do, I do out of self-interest.” It’s warm this close to him, but she’s not backing off until he says something worth her time.

“You didn’t answer the question.” He’s hardly finished speaking before she starts. He is silent for several seconds, taking a breath before he speaks again. 

“If I did have an ulterior motive, what would you do? Would you turn me in, to Danny?” It’s her turn to pause. Every second she takes before she speaks seems to insert distance between them. She can see disappointment bloom in his eyes and feels it just as deeply in her chest.

“Would you believe me if I said no?” She’s asking herself as much as him.


	7. Sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note the graphic depictions of violence warning

“Would you believe me if I said no?” She’s asking herself as much as him.

Deckard doesn’t answer right away, their conversation stagnating in a pregnant pause, both searching each other’s eyes and skeptical at what they find. Finally, Deckard opens his mouth to speak. Before he can, Danny enters and calls the two of them over.

She still has so many questions—is he a cop, is he here to kill Danny?—but there’s no opportunity to ask.

The deal site is a short distance away, but time seems to stretch in this car. Danny continues babbling incessantly about nothing she cares to listen to, and she’s hyper aware of Deckard’s presence in the front seat.

They arrive covertly, silently filing in the back entrance of what looks like a warehouse. It’s dimly lit, light too low to make out the printed text on the boxes stacked alongside the aisles they walk between. Danny, five of his men, Deckard, and Poppy settle in the centre of the building around a small table and wait.

It’s just a couple of minutes before there’s the sound of a door opening at the opposite end of the building, a metallic ring echoing up to the high ceiling and back. The eight of them snap to attention. She smooths down her dress as Danny adjusts his blazer, shooting her a cocky smile. As the sound of footsteps approaches, five figures emerge out of the darkness. Four of them seem to be bodyguards, with one man in a suit leading the pack.

The man stops in front of them and nods to the group. He and Danny exchange handshakes, and the deal begins.

“Here it is.” Danny pulls a nondescript drive out of his jacket and presents it to the buyer.

“I would like to make sure this drive has the correct contents.” The man signals to one of his companions, who sets a laptop down on the table and opens it. It lights up immediately.

“Very thorough.” Danny hands the drive to the man, Danny’s men pressing closer around their side of the table, and the man plugs it in.

This is the worst part, waiting for the negotiations to start. Poppy takes solace in half-hearted people-watching of the stone-faced muscle, but mostly she stands, hands by her sides, feet slowly going numb. Her eyes continually wander toward Deckard beside her, who has been silent during the entire ordeal, expressionless, intently focused on the two men interacting.

The laptop opens the drive to the expected pathogen research, and as it does, she sees Deckard’s fingers shift from where they hung laced together, sliding under his jacket.

She doesn’t move, doesn’t make any indication she’s seen something that she is certain means an imminent gunfight. Sure enough, just as Danny begins to say, “In terms of price…”, all hell breaks loose.

Deckard takes his gun out of its holster, points it directly at the buyer, and shoots him. Suddenly the two groups are at war, Danny’s five bodyguards against the opposing four, and all duck for cover as bullets begin to fly. Danny grabs the hard drive from the table. As he does, Poppy takes the opportunity to pull his gun out of the holster on his lower back, being without a gun herself.

Her grab for Danny’s gun places her in the firing line, as a bullet intended for Danny misses him and lands in Poppy’s abdomen. She withdraws, curling in on herself as she retreats, quickly protected by one of Danny’s men, one hand pressing desperately against her aching wound.

Poppy stumbles into a neighbouring aisle, each step burdened with the sounds of increasingly distant brawling and the shouts of injured men. She’s almost halfway out of the building when she hears Danny yell her name behind her.

She’s not two metres from them, Danny on the ground, nose bleeding, and Deckard standing over him, pointing a gun at his head.

“Stop!” She yells, aiming her stolen gun at Deckard, her stomach erupting in fresh pain without the pressure of her other hand. Deckard doesn’t look at her right away, keeping his eyes trained on Danny.

“You know what this man has done, Poppy. I’m just doing my job.” From the sounds of it, the two groups of bodyguards are having trouble subduing each other. Deckard’s voice is even, emotionless.

“You’re not better than me, Shaw! You’ve killed more than I have!” Deckard frowns, a deep angry frown, and moves his gun closer to Danny, threatening him. Danny flinches, then lets out a breathy and arrogant laugh.

Danny’s smugness at causing Deckard discomfort only alienates Poppy more from him.

Shaw kicks Danny in the stomach, causing him to curl inwards and roll on his side. Deckard looks up and meets her eyes.

“You know him.”  _ You know me,  _ he implies. He speaks so gently she’s surprised she can even hear him. She considers shooting him, taking the safe way out and keeping Danny’s trust. But the sacrifice seems too great.

She lowers her gun. On the ground, Danny rolls toward her, so he can look her in the eye.

“You ungrateful bitch. Siding against the man who made you.” He writhes pathetically under the gaze of Deckard’s gun, spitting as he speaks. Deckard doesn’t move to stop him.

“I always knew you’d betray me. You’re a whore. Can’t do anything for yourself.” Every word Danny says makes her angrier, a deep and long harboured anger bubbling up from the pit of her stomach and searing white hot up her chest and into her cheeks.  _ How dare he, _ she thinks, over and over again.  _ How dare he. _

“We never should’ve helped you,” he says. She remembers all the choices she never made because he made them for her. Her hand that holds the gun is slick with blood, and she tightens her grip.

“I never should’ve let you step all over me,” he says. She remembers all the times she drained her soul making nice to him, the everlasting fear that one day he would lose interest and she would die. Her stomach throbs, and she can feel herself bleeding from a bullet Danny should have taken.

“All you’ve ever done is fucking take advantage of me—” She feels something inside her snap, an impulse decision inspired by Danny’s own favoured break up method. She aims her gun square at Danny’s chest and pulls the trigger.

The shot is loud, lingering in her ears for seconds after she takes it. Danny’s body crumples to the concrete floor, lifeless and floppy. She meets Deckard’s eyes, her anger dissipating into relief, and then doubt. Deckard stretches his arm out towards her, but before he can finish calling her name she turns and starts to run out of the building.

He lets her go, watches as she fails to look back, Danny’s blood pooling warm and sticky at his feet.


	8. Sushi Train

Shaw enters the restaurant with some apprehension, flipping the short curtains that hang in the doorway out of his way. Outside, a bright green sign proclaims, ‘SUSHI TRAIN’. Inside, neat plates bustle along a winding conveyer belt that snakes throughout the room, benches accompanying it. 

Henry Dyce is already there, two discarded dishes to the right of where he sits. Shaw joins him, the both of them avoiding eye contact like two spies on a park bench. Dyce sighs before he speaks. 

“On a scale of one to bloody disastrous, how well did your plan go?” Deckard picks a plate of tuna nigiri off the belt and places it in front of him, taking his time to respond. He pulls the plastic cover off the dish, retrieves a set of chopsticks, and pops a nigiri into his mouth. Once satisfied, he reaches into his jacket pocket and sets the hard drive, so desired by Dyce, on the table between them. It’s stained heavily with blood and almost symmetrically pierced by the bullet that Poppy shot into Danny’s chest, the hard drive having been sitting unhappily in Danny’s front pocket during the time of the fight. 

Henry looks unimpressed as Shaw chews. “That’s the best you could do?” 

“It was self defence, Henry. Nothing more could’ve been done.” Shaw is aggressive out of the gate.

“Serves me right for hiring the best.” Dyce sounds bitter, disappointed, though not angry. He takes the destroyed hard drive and puts it in his pocket. 

“Perhaps if you weren’t such a greedy bastard you wouldn’t have gone to the trouble.” Shaw mutters. Dyce is taken aback for a moment at such an insult, but soon allows himself a quiet chuckle and takes a bite of his avocado roll.

There’s a moment of silence where both men sit in reflection of their failures before Dyce speaks again. “You heard about Poppy?”

“Just rumours.” Dyce’s tone gains sudden focus as he continues, lowering his voice. 

“People have been asking questions.” 

“What kind of questions?” Dyce doesn’t flinch in the face of Shaw’s rising hostility.

“Who shot Danny, for one. And where is she?”

“I shot Danny. And she was badly injured. She probably just crawled off to die in a ditch somewhere.” Shaw doesn’t believe what he’s saying even as he says it with false confidence.

“That doesn’t sound like Poppy.” Dyce presses. He’s right.

Shaw is silent for a few seconds before he stands abruptly, leaving Dyce to his sushi without so much as a goodbye.

On the drive home, his mind races. If news of Poppy’s responsibility for Danny’s death became common knowledge, her life would be on the line. But it’s wholly possible there is no risk. Because she really could be dead.

All evidence points to the latter. But perhaps, after a couple of weeks, she’ll turn up, holding a boombox outside his flat like some kind of teenage fantasy.

No, he has to face facts. Poppy Capello is dead, or as good as. 

And it’s his fault.


	9. Fire

Millionaire businessman and notorious criminal Michael Levick lives in a mansion as large and conspicuous as it is fortified. But a high fence proves no problem for anyone with nefarious intent; intent Shaw possesses as he skulks through the grounds. It is Shaw’s job to dispatch Mr. Levick tonight. His services, as usual, have been requested by some mysterious yet generous client; a competitor in Levick’s favoured trade of smuggling counterfeit luxury jewelry, perhaps. Whoever they are, Shaw is all too willing to complete what they’ve asked of him.

Settling behind a neatly trimmed hedge, Shaw begins to plan his assault, noting a number of security guards slowly pacing the grounds. As he does, there’s a loud noise to his left, a violent bursting sound. It sounds like an explosion, and a fiery one at that. All of the security guards in view rush towards it and leave the rest of the house unguarded.

As this stunt was not set up by him, Shaw suspects another party may be at play. He waits a moment longer as security guards round the corner, shouts fading into the distance, and is rewarded for his patience with the sight of a figure running through the garden and swiftly climbing a pipe on the outside of the house. They’re fast, making their way up to the roof quickly enough that Shaw has to rush, picking the lock on the nearest door to catch up to them. This is his chance to kill Mr. Levick, under the cover of this potential thief’s distraction.

Shaw slips through the house unnoticed, an orange glow and yelling emanating from the front of the house. Making his way to the back, where Mr. Levick sleeps, he slows as he approaches the door, one hand on his gun. He hasn’t seen the thief, and that worries him.

Shaw opens the door quickly, his gun raised, and is greeted by the thief standing over Mr. Levick, a pillow held firmly over his face. At the sound of Shaw’s entrance, they stop, pulling their hands back, and the pillow falls to the ground. Levick doesn’t move. He’s already dead.

Shaw takes a step forward, moonlight falling upon his face. The mystery figure is dressed all in black, gloves and balaclava giving no indication of their identity. He trains his gun on them and opens his mouth to speak, but the thief, as seems to be the theme tonight, beats him to it .

“Deckard?”

-

It’s always nice to do a job during the witching hours. It’s calm, cool, and a clear sky lets the moon shine upon the scene like it’s a ghost of itself. She stands in the shadows, waiting for her cue to infiltrate the house of Michael Levick, a man of many talents and sins. But the crime most pertinent tonight: persistent mistreatment of the women in his life. For this, he will die. But before that can happen, she has to climb the height of his mansion, make the most of the tiny window of time that her colleague slingshotting a Molotov cocktail at the front door has granted her.

The house is sprawling but not extremely tall, only one floor. She drops in through the skylight in his ensuite bathroom, an often-overlooked security risk, and creeps into the sleeping Levick’s bedroom. He’s sound asleep and doesn’t wake until she is already placing a pillow over his face. By then, it’s too late.

She’s hardly finished smothering Levick before the door opens, an unexpectedly familiar figure entering.

-

“Poppy?” Even with her face covered he can tell she isn’t overjoyed to see him. His own reaction is pure bafflement. Before he has a chance to ask the myriad of questions that spring forward, there is the sound of distant voices echoing closer. Security has come to inform Mr. Levick of the fire, which means it’s time for a quick exit.

Shaw turns his head to hear the voices, and as he turns his head back, she has already alighted out of the nearest window. Shaw wastes no time in following behind her.

Poppy, now a shadowy figure identifiable only through her movement, runs towards the fence, choosing speed over stealth. Above him, Shaw can hear the security guards enter the room. Shaw runs after her, both of them disappearing into the darkness of the early hours, scaling the fence and making their leave.

Poppy doesn’t wait for him, but he can’t let her go again. Shaw catches up to her as she jogs through the surrounding streets.

Once he gets close enough he hisses, “Poppy!”. She stops abruptly, turning, breathing heavily. They can’t be more than fifty metres from the house, a small orange glow still visible over the horizon.

“You’ve got to stop calling me that.” He’s confused, but she doesn’t explain, just catches her breath for a moment. One hand presses against her side.

He doesn’t quite know what to say, but he does know they can’t talk while they’re metres away from a murder scene. “Need a lift?” He asks.

She seems to consider his offer for a second, breath gradually slowing.

“Love one.”


	10. Dinner

Deckard Shaw isn’t known to mince words, to hesitate to make blunt observations or throw playground insults. But in the face of Poppy’s sudden reappearance, he is almost speechless. How do you confront someone who you believed to be dead until five minutes ago? There’s only one place to start.

“Dinner?”

“Sure.” His car is nice, nicer than Poppy expected, though she doesn’t know why she expected less. While she could insist he drop her at a safe distance, abandon him to a past she would rather forget once again, her curiosity gets the best of her.

It’s quiet for a few seconds before either of them speak again, the awkwardness of the moment creeping up on the two of them as they contemplate the idea of spending another couple of hours in each other’s company. She was never averse to speaking with him, but their dynamic seems shifted now, and she’s not sure what role she’s supposed to play.

“I heard Alta burned down.” She says, a little colder than she intended.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t bother elaborating. 

“I heard you disappeared.” He says. It’s been just over six months since Danny Brunt’s murder, six months blaming himself for something that never happened. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he never fully let himself believe she was dead, which made waiting for her worse.

She looks at him as he drives, jaw slightly tense, eyes front and unmoving. He sounds strained, like it’s difficult for him to say, like her fate worried him. A guilty conscience, perhaps, but Shaw doesn’t strike her as someone who spends a lot of time deliberately ruminating on his past.

“I suppose you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” She says. He doesn’t reply. He’s a little relieved, knowing she is alive, but it doesn’t negate everything else.

It’s quiet until they reach their destination. Inside, the restaurant is bustling, tables scattered sparsely across the large room, a modern fireplace crackling happily in the corner. A waiter greets them as they enter, leading the two of them to an empty table near the back of the room, by a wall. It’s purely due to how busy the restaurant is, but it grants them privacy that they are both grateful for.

They sit, promptly ordering food and wine. The waiter leaves, and it’s just the two of them.

“This is nice. I love Italian.” She says and hates how fake she sounds.

“This spot is one of my favourites.” He, too, is speaking as though he’s on a job, jovial tone carefully orchestrated. 

“Why?” She’s usually so comfortable in a setting like this, but she doesn’t know what her goal is with Shaw, and it’s putting her off her game. Her hands feel out of place, so with fingers wrapped tightly together, she moves them under the table, unseen. 

“The wine’s usually on the house.” He says with a forced smirk, and a waiter arrives with a bottle in hand. He pours two glasses, the two of them eyeing each other across the table.

She lifts her glass to her nose and inhales. Shaw raises his.

“Cheers.” They touch glasses and sip. Both of them haven’t stopped watching each other since they reunited, eyes flicking between details in an effort to absorb as much information about the other as possible.

“I have to ask.” They return their wine glasses to the table, and Shaw’s eyes finally leave her, falling down as he broaches the subject. He hesitates, struggling to pinpoint everything he wants to know. He settles on a statement over a question. “People thought you were dead.”

She lets her eyes rest on the table as well, suddenly finding it hard to look him in the eye. He doesn’t seem to want to elaborate on his statement, so she answers it. “Poppy is dead.”

Her short answer fails to satisfy Shaw, who finds himself irrationally irritated by the idea that Poppy faked her own death, however justifiable. Six months of debating his actions that night, suffering over her existence, or lack thereof, appears humiliating in the face of her apparent nonchalance.

“Where have you been?” His finding offence at her choices is surprising to her, as well as aggravating.

“Why do you need to know?” Her push back against his questioning hardly dulls his anger, but he can’t express why he has such a desperation to hear her explain herself. He sighs. She attempts to change the topic.

“Were you hired to visit Mr. Levick tonight?” He wants to resist the topic change, but soon gives up in the face of her directness, in complement to his own.

“Yes, I was. Were you?” She smirks, as if being accused of murder for pay were amusing.

“In a way.” She finally says.

“So, what, you’re an assassin now? A vigilante?” He’s still confused by the whole situation, seeing her after everything that happened. His questions have a pleading quality to them, not quite crossing into aggression.

“I suppose. Why, are you jealous?”

“I wouldn’t say jealous.” Finally, she smiles, a smile he remembers as only half as captivating as it is in reality, and he can’t help but smile back, just a little.

“What cause are you defending?” It’s a risk, letting anyone know what she’s doing, but she is past the point of no return. 

“Well, if a woman complains of mistreatment at the hands of a man, sometimes they find that they wake up the following week with their troubles eliminated.” She speaks slowly and deliberately, choosing her words carefully, finishing her sentence with a smile and no small amount of smugness.

Shaw takes a couple of seconds to nod and process her statement before speaking.

“Well, I can’t oppose the world having less Dannys in it.” He says lightly, but his tone doesn’t land with her, the mention of Danny’s name settling as a heavy weight on her chest. Even after their separation, Shaw sees through to her core, to a part of herself she prefers to relegate to the shadowy corners of her bad dreams.

“Yeah.” She says and can’t think right away of what else to say. She folds her arms across her stomach. Somehow, she’s a little short of breath. Shaw seems to consider for a moment, speaking low and serious.

“You know what you’re doing is extremely dangerous. These men, they don’t fuck around.” Any concern Shaw has is overshadowed by the utter condescension Poppy interprets from his comment. Her gaze sharpens, her voice harsh when she speaks again.

“Yes, I know.” He doesn’t quite seem to pick up on the severity of her offence, pressing on.

“You shouldn’t underestimate-” She interrupts.

“I know what I’m doing.” She gets the feeling he doesn’t really believe her, but he shuts his mouth, swallows the grimace she can feel waiting in his throat, and quiets. Despite his misgivings, he can’t bring himself to criticise her further. 

The waiter returns with their food. She attempts to put aside her displeasure and digs in, having not eaten for hours in preparation for the murder she just committed. Shaw begins eating less voraciously.

The silence drags the longer it continues. Shaw opens and closes his mouth as if to say something but doesn’t. Instead, she moves the conversation forward once again.

“I do have something else I’ve been wondering.” Shaw looks up from his pasta and waits for her to make her inquiry. Her words are guarded, and they can both see through it. Her voice, seconds ago shaky and strained, now sings with the melody and practice of a thousand conversations.

“Were you hired to kill Danny?” She pushes herself to say his name. Shaw’s expression hardens, shifts from openly expectant to reserved.

“Not exactly.” He seems hesitant to speak, so she takes it upon herself to prompt him.

“Was it the hard drive?” He doesn’t answer, filling his mouth with gnocchi, so she takes that as a yes.

“You got the hard drive back for who? MI6?” She smirks as she comes to a realisation. “No. Henry Dyce.” 

No words, but he lets out a short chuckle, almost noiseless. She is certain she’s right, so she continues as if he’s confirmed her assessment.

“Was he angry?” He sighs, gives up on pretending she hasn’t got him all figured out, and finally speaks. He’s not sure if she is referring to losing the hard drive or Danny’s death, but he can answer the same for both.

“No.” She smiles at his belated admission, satisfied at her own success, and waits for him to elaborate. He doesn’t, scooping another mouthful of gnocchi and chewing.

“That’s it?” She asks. He continues to chew, and she gives him an imploring look. After a few seconds of staring, he acquiesces again, leaning in to confide in her.

“They think I shot him. Self defence.” Her eyes are wide, lips parted in shock. He continues, herding the last of his gnocchi into a pile on his plate. “We lost the drive, but there was nothing I could do.”

She closes her mouth, regains her composure a little, gathering a fork full of spaghetti to fill her mouth while her mind ticks over. Her debt to him sinks uneasily into the bottom of her stomach, next to the seafood. She almost feels as though she should thank him, but the thought of doing so is so abhorrent in its vulnerability that she’s sure she would vomit in the act. So, she doesn’t.

“Okay, you’ve asked me something, now I get to ask you.” He announces with an air of laboured cheerfulness, and she exhales.

“Alright.” 

He puts his cutlery down and rests his hands on the table as if to direct his full attention towards her.

“Favourite dog breed?” 

She chuckles. “Seriously?” It’s so absurd that he would ask a question like that following their previous conversation that she’s certain he must be patronising her, but his eyes speak to his sincerity. “German Shepherd. Intelligent, able to be trained, friendly.”

Shaw nods. “Excellent choice.” His friendliness almost puts her at ease, and she dares to wonder if their conversation might be taking a more mutually pleasant turn.

“My turn. Was mercenary your first career choice?” Her question seems to cause Shaw to withdraw as she had for most of their conversation.

“I don’t suppose it’s anyone’s, really. I fell into it.” He’s smiling, but like all of the smiles he’s given tonight, it’s hindered. His sudden hesitancy towards openness pulls her back from her eagerness to achieve whatever she briefly imagined she could achieve tonight.

“You fell into homicide?” She asks, amused but a little strained, and he shrugs.

“Yeah.” She doesn’t press him, partly because she can feel the wall between them thickening every second, and partly because she can tell he would hardly give her the details anyway. Short answers conveyed with a tone of finality, that was Shaw’s norm; it would be difficult to crack.

The waiter returns to clear their plates, hers far emptier than his. This time, their eyes hardly meet across the interrupted table, both taking refuge away from each other’s gaze.

Shaw doesn’t ask if she wants to stay for dessert, just asks the waiter for the check in resignation. He doesn’t know what he should have expected, given the circumstances. Some of the magic of the moments they had previously shared? It’s clear the shimmer has worn off. 

They hardly say anything for several minutes as he drives her back to her apartment. Finally, Shaw breaks the silence.

“What is your name? Since I’m certain it’s not Poppy anymore.” She chuckles, streetlights sending yellow bars of light over their faces too rapidly to catch any details.

“You’re right, it isn’t. It’s Eliza.”

“It’s a nice name.” His earnestness in reassuring her is a friendly sentiment, but she scoffs at it.

After another minute of quiet she replies in a tone softly resentful, the dark inspiring candor. “Yeah, well. I didn’t mind being Poppy Capello.”

She directs him to stop three blocks before her building.

She doesn’t want to say goodbye, doesn’t want to acknowledge the cocktail of feelings that threaten to flip her stomach right out of her body and onto the floor of his shiny car. Somehow, he must sense her hesitation, because he speaks first, with a tone almost mournful in its friendliness.

“It was good to see you, Eliza.”

“It was good to see you too, Deckard.”


	11. Mary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note graphic depictions of violence

It’s been nine days since they had dinner, and every lull in Shaw’s day is filled with thoughts of her. In every crowd he walks through, he sees her in the faces of women who, on second glance, are strangers. As miserably as he felt their meeting went in the moment, in the aftermath she manages to wind her way into his every thought, consuming in her beautiful confusion.

Walking along a bustling London street, he lets his mind drift back to her again. Her demeanour did not fill him with confidence that she was coping with the whole Danny-murder situation well. Her previous capitulation seems to have exploded into a vehement destructiveness. His concern for her is utterly disproportionate to what he deems is necessary. Though none of his feelings toward her are dictated by logic.

Behind him, a man follows his route too closely. He crosses the street abruptly, and the man copies. Just as Shaw is about to lead him into an alleyway to confront him, another man, similar in demeanour, appears in front of him. They look like someone’s hired muscle, big and beefy and dressed in black.

“Deckard Shaw?” Shaw glances at both of them, unimpressed.

“Who’s asking?”

“Mrs. Mary Brunt requests your presence.” Danny Brunt’s mother. Shaw knew she would go looking for answers, and likely stop at nothing to find them. While he doesn’t make a habit of complying with unknown men’s orders, there’s a possibility that he might be able to ward Mrs. Brunt off Poppy’s trail. So, he allows the men to usher him to their waiting car, windows tinted to black, and waits to be interrogated.

After a brief drive, he is guided out of the car, searched, and led into a large home, the art deco style surprisingly ordinary for the activities it holds. Inside, a living room near the rear of the house is filled with dark wooden furniture in contrast to the stark white walls. A series of tall, semicircular windows fill the room with the glare of the morning’s light.

Shaw and the two men who confronted him stand. Waiting, he presumes, for the lady of the house.

After a few seconds she enters, silver hair swirling into an elaborate updo, face wrought with lines betraying a life lived vigorously.

“Deckard Shaw. So nice to finally meet you.” She doesn’t offer a hand, but gestures to one of the chairs at the round table in front of them, empty but for a notebook. Mrs. Brunt sits with her legs crossed, one arm lying comfortably on the table. Shaw, to the untrained eye, is just as relaxed, hands resting on his thighs. But a closer inspection reveals his posture to be tense, as if he were ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation.

“Not that it isn’t a pleasure, Mrs. Brunt, but I can’t help but wonder why you called me here.” Her lips curl slightly at his comment in disgust, but when she speaks she is calm and polite.

“I want you to answer some questions. About my son.” Shaw does not reply, his expression divulging nothing to Mrs. Brunt’s seeking gaze.

“I have been told several conflicting accounts of what could have happened in the warehouse that night.” She continues. “I need you to tell me the truth.” She’s not raising her voice, but her tone is so final and stern that it has the impact as if she had shouted.

“Why do you think I know the truth any more than you?” Calm as she is, her resoluteness could easily intimidate.

“It seems that you are the only survivor, Mr. Shaw. The only one to live through that night.” Mrs. Brunt’s emphasis on ‘seems’ makes him wonder if she knows the truth after all, that Poppy is not as dead as would seem.

Mrs. Brunt continues. “Tell me, Deckard, could you explain your sensational luck that evening?”

“We were ambushed. The buyer wanted the item for themselves. I legged it as soon as they started shooting.” He says shortly. Mrs. Brunt breaks into a smile, and then laughs, a disbelieving, unsettling chuckle.

“You don’t strike me as the kind of man to run from danger.” Her eyes return to Shaw, steely, but he doesn’t crack.

“Looks can be deceiving.” Mrs. Brunt stares Shaw down for a moment longer and shifts her focus.

“Henry Dyce recommended you to Danny, did he not?” As she speaks she reaches for the notebook, flicking casually through its contents.

“He might have.” Shaw remembers the day he owned up to Danny’s murder to Henry Dyce in such vivid detail, he might as well have been back there when he spoke. His own words sit, burning a hole in the back of his mind, ‘It was self defence, Henry. Nothing I could do’. Undoubtedly Mrs. Brunt would not be so forgiving.

“He did. He told me so.”

“Did he? Then it must be true.” She takes out a photo from the pages of her notebook, placing it on the table and sliding it towards Shaw. 

He doesn’t move, doesn’t lean forward, just lets his eyes fall on the image and raise again. Mrs. Brunt doesn’t acknowledge the photo’s contents, but watches Shaw, observing his reaction.

Henry Dyce lies on his back, eyes open and stunned, a messy hole in his forehead. His face is bloodied and bruised, revealing his death as protracted. Beside him, his wife and his only son, in similar states. They’re lined up, shoulder to shoulder, a gruesome souvenir.

“Henry was such a terrible drunk. He could hardly remember most of the last few years.” She says lightly, disturbing amusement playing on her lips.

“Danny was chased down and shot by one of the buyer’s men. That’s all I can tell you. Like I said, I didn’t stick around.” Nothing he says seems to appease her.

“What about Poppy Cappello?”

“What about her?” He hopes to God that Mrs Brunt doesn’t pick up on the adrenaline that shoots through his abdomen at the mention of her.

“What happened to her?” Her tone remains the same throughout their conversation, impossible to tell if she is more suspicious or satisfied.

“She was shot by one of the buyer’s men too. Tried to run. I heard she died.” Shaw says shortly. Mrs. Brunt stares him down once again, determined in searching his gaze for a truth he refuses to grant her.

“You’re sure there’s nothing else you can tell me?” She asks. Shaw is convinced she believes nothing of what he has said, bracing himself for an altercation with her men.

“That’s all.” Finally, she breaks eye contact.

“Very well.” She picks up the photo of the murdered Dyce’s and coolly tucks it back in her notebook. “The boys will show you out.”

Shaw is still for a moment, taken aback by her apparent mercy. One of the men approaches him and gestures toward the front door, escorting him back to the car he had been sure would lead him to a different fate. They drop him off where they first took him off the street.


	12. Prius

As content as he should be with his release from Mrs. Brunt’s hold, apprehension consumes him. Shaw is certain this is not the last he will see of Mrs. Brunt, nor will it be the last Poppy, or Eliza, will hear of her former employer. It takes him a matter of minutes to resolve to visit Poppy. Warn her, try and get her out of the country. Something. Anything.

He knows she lives somewhere around where he dropped her off a week or so ago. That night, Mrs. Brunt’s words echoing in his mind, he knocks on every door in a four-block radius. Four blocks that contain nothing but large apartment complexes.

He goes through so many apartment buildings that the words, “Hello, does Eliza live here?” lose their meaning.

One apartment answers only with the loud sounds of a baby crying, a muffled voice completely obscured. Another yells “bugger off!” as loud as it can down the speaker and hangs up. Another invites him to enter her flat regardless of the lack of Elizas, an offer he politely declines.

Finally, after three hours of trudging around, he gets the answer he has been waiting for.

“Hello, does Eliza live here?” He sighs, pushing his hands deeper into his pockets. It’s quiet for a beat too long, and then, an answer.

“Who is this?” It’s got to be her, Shaw’s ears pricking at the sound of her voice. He replies quickly.

“Deckard. Deckard Shaw.” There’s no reply, which seems to confirm that it’s her.

“Could you let me in? It’s just me.” Still nothing. “Please?”

The door buzzes, open.

Shaw looks briefly over his shoulder, but he’s not really seeing, too concerned with what he’ll say once he reaches her door. He walks slowly and steadily to her floor and takes a deep breath. He hasn’t been this nervous since he was a teenager.

Her apartment door opens just as he walks up to knock on it. He walks straight in, Poppy shutting the door behind him.

“Keep it down, my roommates work nights.” She half-whispers as he enters. Already she sounds angry that he’s here. Her apartment is sparsely furnished, curtains drawn.

“Thank you.” He says. Her expression doesn’t shift from a frown.

“What are you doing here?” She asks, accusatory.

“I met Mary Brunt today.” Her arms fall to her sides, the colour seeming to drain out of her face. “I don’t think you’re safe.”

“I’m dead.” She insists.

“I don’t think she agrees.” Shaw speaks with caution, proverbially holding his hands up in surrender to Poppy’s frustration.

“Fuck.” She swears under her breath, and abruptly walks past him, into what he assumes is her bedroom. “I need to leave.”

She starts stuffing clothes haphazardly into a bag. Shaw notices she has a gun tucked into the back of her jeans. “Let me help you.” Shaw says, standing in the doorway. He feels out of place inside her flat, alien.

“Thank you, Deckard, but I don’t want your help.” Her thanks seem sincere, but her rebuttal is unacceptable to him.

“But you need it.” Poppy stops where she stands just long enough to give Deckard a glare strong enough to make him regret his choice of words, just a little.

“I appreciate you coming to warn me. But I can take care of myself.” Her thanks is said with such harsh indignation it hardly feels like gratefulness. He can’t leave her, Shaw thinks, not without suffering the same guilt he felt for months before. And he won’t do that again.

He goes to speak but is interrupted by the ringing of her doorbell, intercom ringing ominously through the phone. Both of them freeze where they stand.

“Are you expecting anyone?” Shaw asks, but he feels he knows the answer. The phone rings again, the sound broadcasting their doom.

“No.”

Within a second they both move to the front door, the urgency of their need to exit pressing on the both of them. Shaw presses his eye up against the peep hole, the hallway full of half a dozen armed men. By the time the doorbell rings a third time, Shaw has rushed across the living room to the balcony and the both of them are hanging from it, grateful for the fence-like design of the railing, with many a gap to slide your fingers between. As Poppy swings onto the balcony below her, she hears the assailants burst into her apartment above. One of her roommates screams, but there’s nothing Poppy can do for them now but run.

Finally on the ground, Poppy gestures for Shaw to follow, and he does, bullets beginning to rain from above. She can hear the men shouting, informing others of their location, and she wonders if she will be able to make it out this time.

They swing around the corner of her building and Poppy reaches into her pocket and pulls out a set of car keys, replete with a tiny plush cat keyring. Rushing towards an electric blue Prius, Poppy again waves to Shaw to follow, who can’t help but look disappointed. 

Behind them, the guns they hear are approaching quickly, bullets ricocheting off the brick wall in front of them. In her haste to get in the car, Poppy finds herself in the passenger seat, Shaw sitting beside her.

“Fuck!” Poppy hands over the keys, and they screech into movement with a puff of burning rubber. Mrs. Brunt’s men aren’t far behind, in their big black bad guy cars, and Shaw’s forehead is furrowed in frustration.

“Why’d you have to have a fucking Prius?” He yells. Poppy, eyes peeking over the passenger seat out the back window, yells back.

“I didn’t know I was gonna be in a fucking car chase!”

Shaw weaves them through traffic. But the Brunt’s men are gaining on them. Through the buildings he glimpses a bridge, so he approaches it. Poppy, waits for an opportunity to take a shot in between numerous twists and turns, arms wrapped around the passenger seat, back to the road.

“They’re getting close!” She shouts, annoyed.

“Give me a minute!” Shaw swings onto the bridge, filled with traffic. Poppy ducks behind the seats as Brunt’s men squeeze in the centre of the two-lane road, sending cars swerving, and begin to shunt them against the outside walls of the bridge. The driver’s side mirror flies behind them, the car and cement wall making a grating, metallic noise. Brunt’s men don’t even try to shoot them, just laugh inside their comparatively giant vehicle, all eyes on the tragic sight of Poppy Capello and Deckard Shaw, bound for death. They’re so amused that they fail to see the cement divider before they smash right into it. Poppy pops her head above the seat to watch the carnage disappear into the horizon and smiles. 

“Good one.”

The other two cars swerve into the oncoming lane. Not making the same mistake as their late colleagues, these cars shoot with abandon, spraying bullets at everything around Poppy’s car. Poppy returns, but hardly makes an impact. One of the Brunt’s bullets makes its way to a couple of Shaw and Poppy’s tyres, taking most of Shaw’s control out of the car’s direction. They continue at speed, barreling towards an intersection teeming with pedestrians. Shaw turns the car on dull wheels, the crowd in front of him dispersing in an eruption of screams. He’s almost through, but his plans are foiled when one of the Brunt’s cars slam into their rear with enough force for Poppy’s car to roll onto its back, sending people running in all directions.

The impacting car misjudges their speed and collides severely with the building opposite. Only one car is left currently operational, approaching quickly. Shaw feels a warm sensation on his forehead, a sensation he recognises as blood. All of the windows are broken, so Shaw crawls out on the side opposite to where the final of Brunt’s car is advancing, beginning to spray bullets once more. As Shaw escapes from the car, he can see Poppy shuffling out of the backseat, broken glass clinking delicately against the surface of the road **.** Poppy spots a motorcycle abandoned by an unlucky bystander and quickly mounts it, nodding for Shaw to join her.

Shaw looks a little distrustful, but nonetheless moves to climb on the back of the bike with her before she raises one hand and points to the side of the motorbike, below her. Shaw takes another step forward and sees what she is gesturing at: a sidecar.

“First a fucking Prius...” He says, hastily shoving his legs into the car as Poppy begins to drive.

By the time the final car has reached the site of the crash, Poppy and Shaw have already set off down the road. But the speed of the bike isn’t enough to outrun the last of the Brunt’s, who have taken to shoving other cars off the road in an attempt to keep up. Poppy sees a path and takes a sharp left into a multi-story car park.

The Brunt’s follow, both vehicles winding up the spiralling car park until they reach the roof. It’s just beginning to rain, fine water drops fogging in the air. The Brunt’s begin to shoot, now that they’ve exited the concrete maze, and Shaw can hear bullets singing past his ears.

“This is a dead-end!” Shaw shouts, but Poppy doesn’t reply, accelerating towards the edge of the roof. At the last moment, Poppy leans back in the seat, lifting up the front wheel to soar over the edge of the roof and onto the scaffolding hugging the wall of the opposite building in a way the Brunt’s could never manage. She brakes just long enough to glance back at a fuming Mary Brunt, and then the wheels of the bike scream as Poppy floors it down the scaffolding to the ground and exits London as quickly and illegally as possible.


	13. Dirt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: blood

Both are silent for hours outside of the city, until high rises become paddocks, and CCTV becomes increasingly sparse. The sun sets during the journey out of London, the sky black by the time they stop. Just as Shaw’s legs have completely lost feeling, Poppy pulls into a tiny motel, just outside of a tiny village.

Poppy dismounts, rolling her shoulders and neck. Shaw tries to stand, but one numb leg gets caught inside the sidecar as he does, ending with him sitting heavily on the pavement.

Poppy glances over, almost amused. “Need help?”

Deckard shakes his head, strained, and struggles to his feet. “No. I’m fine.”

“We need new wheels.” Poppy gestures to the rest of the parking lot, with only a Jeep and a dusty sedan on offer. “Take your pick.”

He offers to drive so Poppy can sleep, though the prospect of sleep is laughable. But only if they stop long enough for his legs to regain function, a request that Poppy finds reasonable. They sit on the gutter while Deckard flexes his toes.

In the dull gaze of one of the three lonely streetlights, Poppy inspects her wounds. Her hands and arms are grazed, clothes doing little to protect her. Broken glass has left sporadic cuts along all exposed skin, and she can tell she will be black and blue with bruises within a few days. Still, she’s had worse. Deckard is plagued by similar injuries, as well as a short gash at the top of his forehead which had dripped a long line of blood down the side of his nose and chin and neck.

“You look like shit.” She’s not joking, necessarily, but still smirks in amusement at her statement.

“Thanks.” He tries to wipe the blood away, but it’s dried and not budging. In the sparse light, Poppy spots a tap on the wall of the motel. Without warning, she takes hold of Deckard’s shirt sleeve and pulls, gaining a decent chunk of fabric without difficulty, given the day it’s had.

“Hey!” Deckard protests. Poppy walks to the tap and saturates the fabric, handing it back to Deckard, who accepts wordlessly and begins to blindly wipe his face clean. 

After several rubbing motions, he turns to Poppy, who shakes her head and takes the fabric from him. Her first attempt at cleaning around the cut on his forehead is met by a flinch from Deckard, so her second attempt is more gentle, and more effective. Deckard had only managed to remove the blood from his eyebrow to chin, so Poppy dabs the space around his forehead until he is almost presentable. His breath is warm on her wrists, eyes averted but occasionally flitting to hers. She keeps her eyes trained on her task, even as she feels his skin heat under the hand she uses to steady him. Deckard clears his throat as she finishes sponging the last of the blood off his neck, and speaks.

“We have to get you out of the country.” He announces. Poppy laughs, a single exhausted chuckle.

“Yeah.” There’s barely half a metre between them, and Poppy is beset with the desire to put her head on his shoulder. She says nothing for several moments, Deckard hesitant to speak again.

“I knew she would come for me. I just hoped she wouldn’t, I guess. And now…” Poppy gestures to nothing and sighs.

“She won’t stop until we’re both dead.” Poppy concludes.

“Unless we kill her first.” Deckard says. His confidence seems nonsensical to Poppy, her short break from being under the Brunt’s influence not lessening her conviction of their all-consuming power.

“I suppose so.” 

Deckard has so many questions he still wants to ask her, but can’t word them, so he gives up and offers her information instead. 

“You want to know how I got into this business?” She seems to perk up a little at his question.

“Fell into it, I believe is how you described it.” He nods, beginning to smile.

“I joined the military, as a young man.” She’s smiling in encouragement, but Deckard just remembered this story includes some elements of his life he doesn’t usually divulge. He tries to keep his tone light. “I was a pretty good soldier, actually. Did a lot of killing, during that time.”

“I would expect nothing less.” She continues to play along with his jovial energy, but his smile is a little more difficult to keep as he continues to speak.

“Then, things went a bit sour on that front. So, I went into the private sector.”

“A riveting origin story,” She mocks, relaxing, and he chuckles. “Shall I tell you mine?”

“Please do.”

“After I recovered from being shot – you were there for that bit”, Deckard nods. “I was moping about, being helped by some friends. One of them had another friend who was the wife of this dodgy guy.” She pauses, her eyes becoming distant as if she is haunted by what she recounts.

“She’s this tiny thing. Like a mouse. Hardly an adult, he’s got forty years and about half a billion dollars on her. She didn’t feel like she could say no to the marriage. Her father basically sold her to him. You don’t think that kind of thing happens these days, but it does.”

She pauses again, and Deckard doesn’t push her to continue. She wishes she had something to drink. She wishes she were in any other situation than her own.

“So, one night, I went to their house and shot him through his front window. And after that, it just seemed like there were so many men deserving of that treatment.”

The way she talks about her newfound calling, plagued by a purpose she feels obligated to fulfill, is troubling to both of them.

“Is it satisfying?” Deckard asks. This time, she doesn’t try to assume the worst in him, doesn’t take his concern as condescension.

“No.” She admits with a sigh. “But after Danny, I’d already lost my soul. Why not make it count?” She laces her fingers together, pushing them against each other until the knuckles crack, the sound echoing.

“You’re not a killer, Poppy. You don’t have to be.” He doesn’t speak loudly, or with any particular fervour, his voice heartbreakingly soft and honest. Poppy doesn’t meet his eyes, overwhelmed by the rawness of his statement, the humiliation of being vulnerable in front of a man she barely knows, but shares an intimacy with unlike any other, staring down at her hands but not seeing them.

“Look at me.” He pleads. Her unhappiness cuts through him unlike most things he experiences these days, her hold on his heart uncharacteristically severe. When she does finally turn, eyes shining even in the black of the country night, she finds him closer than she thought he was, half a metre now diminished to what feels like nothing at all. They’ve been this close before, but it never feels less meaningful. She looks to him, he looks to her, he moves closer, less than an inch, and he feels her breath on his lips. She feels her chest fill with the thrill of their proximity, and her stomach goes cold with fear at the delight she feels, and she turns away, abruptly standing.

“We better go.” She mutters, not meeting his eyes, and rushes back into the car park, away from him.


	14. Anaesthetic

Shaw chooses the Jeep, the obvious choice compared to a vaguely disintegrating sedan. They’re driving north, the specifics of their plan not confirmed in their deliberate small talk following their car park conversation.

After a while, Deckard supposes he should ask for details. “Where will you go?”

“Well, I can’t stay here. Europe perhaps.” He knew she would say something to that effect, but he’s still disappointed when she does.

“What?” She senses his agitation despite his stony expression, eyes unwavering from the road ahead.

“Nothing.” Poppy is unconvinced. There’s a quiet, just long enough to think the topic might have changed.

“Not many people know that Poppy Capello is still alive.” She’s looking out the window, distancing herself from their interaction. Deckard is disarmed by how she seems to see through him, by her willingness to look.

He stops at a red light, the traffic light a friendless glow hardly illuminating the intersection. “I don’t think you should have told me.” He’s not looking at the road anymore, eyes falling to the steering wheel. “I just wanted you to have told me.”

He goes to steal a glance towards her, looking just in time to see a small canister burst through the backseat window, shattering glass into their car. A second later, another cracks the windscreen, half the canister peeking through it, both of the small metal cans seeping a visible gas into their vehicle. Before they have the opportunity to reach for the door handles, Poppy and Deckard are unconscious.

-

When Poppy was nine, she got appendicitis. They caught it early, and it was the first and only time she had ever been put under a general anaesthetic. It’s a slow process to wake up after anaesthetic, the unnatural sleep lifting gradually over the course of a few hours. She felt exhausted, so tired she couldn’t possibly open her eyes, couldn’t hold on to a single thought for more than a second, her body too heavy to operate. That’s how Poppy feels as she comes to. Despite her efforts to wake up, she can do nothing but wait for the effects of the mystery gas to lessen.

She’s still half asleep when Mrs. Brunt enters, surrounded by lackeys.

“Sleep well?” She makes no attempt to hide her disdain for Poppy in her mockery of her. “Pretty good, isn’t it, that gas? A gift from an up and coming chemical weapons manufacturer.” 

As Brunt speaks, Poppy finally starts to see clearly, the tiny, windowless room betraying nothing of its location, grey cement floor cool against her hands, walls slowly shedding green paint. Her wrists are bound in rope, but as soon as she pulls she can feel the knot is far from secure.

“You know, Danny was always so taken by you. The two of you could have really been something.” Poppy scowls, Brunt’s disappointment nothing but insulting, but can’t help her instinctual cower under her gaze.

Poppy pushes herself to speak, reminding herself of the strength, the adrenaline rush, the ‘fuck you’ of pulling that trigger.

“Danny was a bully- ” Brunt interrupts before Poppy can finish.

“Danny was a leader.” She snarls, and nods to one of her men, who promptly steps forward to kick Poppy in the stomach. She curls in on herself, all air exiting her lungs, coughing and gasping. 

“Tell me. Did you kill him?” Her words drip in contempt. For a moment Poppy thinks Brunt might spit on her where she lies. Poppy stays silent. Brunt again nods, and her lackeys pull Poppy onto her knees, a third winding up to land a punch on the side of her face. She tastes blood. Brunt leans down to look Poppy in the eye.

“Did you kill Danny?” Brunt repeats, more forceful this time. Poppy meets her eyes, but doesn’t make a sound.

“Perhaps your friend will be more forthcoming.” Brunt turns on her heel and exits with a flourish. Her men throw Poppy to the floor. Unable to catch herself, she lands uncomfortably on her shoulder, her head bouncing off the floor.

The door shuts, heavy, and Poppy is left with just two guards. 

She struggles to move from lying down to sitting with her hands behind her back, shuffling onto her knees. One of the men chuckles at her difficulties, sharing an amused glance with the other man. Poppy laughs too, flashing a smile to their momentarily confused faces before she rises, hands freeing from their ties, and punches the first guard right in his smug face.

-

It’s dark. Shaw can feel a dull ache in his wrists and ankles, but it doesn’t clock until he goes to move that they’re tied. His eyes shoot open to find that the darkness he senses is imposed by thick fabric covering his head.

Twisting his hands and feet around in an effort to increase circulation, he finds the restraints incredibly tight, another rope around his waist rendering him immobile against the chair, which seems bolted to the floor, or extremely heavy. His struggles are hampered by the incredible fatigue that holds him, pulls down on his eyelids and muscles.

He can’t tell how long he sits, fighting against his own body, before suddenly the bag over his head is removed. Squinting against the new light, he can just make out the figure of Mary Brunt standing in front of him.

“I am unendingly amused by you, Mr. Shaw. I brought you to my home thinking you would admit to killing my son. Whether you meant to or not.” Shaw closes one eye to concentrate all effort on opening the other, and Brunt laughs. 

“And instead, you raise doubts as to Poppy Capello’s death, which I had no inclination of investigating, and you lead me right to her!” Mrs. Brunt laughs again, and Shaw tries not to let his shoulders visibly deflate.

Fuck. That wasn’t the plan.

“Only one question remains. Who shot Danny? Was it the double agent who double crossed him? Or was it the young woman who stabbed him in the back?” She waits as if she expects Shaw to answer, to give himself or Poppy up, but he doesn’t.

“If you tell me the truth, perhaps I will spare your life.” Shaw bristles at her blatant lie, and at her insinuation that he would betray Poppy to her, banishing his self-reprimands. His teeth grind against each other painfully in his mouth. 

“Or, perhaps I will spare hers.” He remains silent, but something in his eyes must tell Brunt that she has hit a nerve. Her smug smile reminds Shaw of Danny’s unsettling ability to be both revoltingly arrogant and threatening at the same time. 

“Tell me what happened to my son, or I will have Miss Capello shot.” Mrs. Brunt speaks matter-of-factly. 

“Your son got what he deserved.” This time Brunt administers her own violence, slapping Shaw across the face with surprising force. She regains her composure within a second, becoming cheerful again at the thought of her ultimate triumph.

“You two are sweet together, I must say. Perhaps I’ll bury you side-by-side.” Her sickly sweet smile returns, and the room fills with anticipation at the thought of Shaw’s execution. Brunt nods, and a man raises his gun. None ask for last words. There is no ceremony, simply an unspoken countdown to his demise.

Three.

Two.

One.


	15. Friends

Shots and yelling erupt outside the door, forcing Deckard’s execution to a halt.

Brunt’s first reaction is to take most of her men and leave out of one of the two doors into the room, away from the noise, two guards left with Shaw. He is pulling desperately on his restraints, but they aren’t budging. Outside the door, he can hear the shouting cease, followed by shots, and then thuds. Then it’s quiet.

The two guards raise their weapons to the door.

“Got some friends, do you?” One of them growls toward Shaw. But when the door bursts open, it’s Poppy wielding the bullets. 

The two guards hit the floor, and Deckard smiles.

“How did you do that?” Poppy pulls out a knife, freshly scavenged from a dead man’s jacket, and rushes to release his restraints.

“They didn’t tie me up nearly as well as you.” She says, swiftly liberating him. Deckard notices her cheek is red and puffy, lip split on one side.

“Bastards.” He’s serious, but she chuckles.

“We have to get Brunt.” Poppy declares as Shaw picks up a gun off the floor. “And I know the way to do it.” Poppy holds up her own weapon, of a different genre. Shaw nods.

“Perfect.” 

They enter the hallway ready for a gunfight but find it empty, a narrow and dimly lit tunnel at the end of which echoes the muffled sounds of business. They creep forward, and arrive upon a restaurant kitchen in full swing. On the other side of the window, they can see Brunt disappear through a door on the opposite side of the room, all but two of her men remaining behind. The kitchen staff go about business as usual as six armed men turn towards where Poppy and Deckard crouch and approach.

Poppy pulls out her weapon, and, with Deckard opening the door on her signal, fires three canisters of the same gas used to subdue them into the kitchen. They count twelve bodies falling before they dare enter, stepping over unconscious limbs on their way out.

Outside, Mrs. Brunt has one foot in her car when Deckard and Poppy barge out of the restaurant, much faster and much more alive than she expected. Her bodyguards, taken by surprise, are useless, easily slain.

“It’s over, Mary.” Poppy calls, and Brunt steps out from the car, glaring even in the face of her imminent demise.

Brunt laughs. “Everyone in this town is loyal to me!” Poppy and Deckard have their guns raised, inching closer to Brunt with every step.

“Criminals are loyal to the highest bidder. You’re just another asshole.” Poppy’s hands tremor slightly, betraying her rage.

“You’re just another pawn who doesn’t know her place.” Brunt spits. Poppy takes two long steps forward, within arm’s reach of Brunt, but doesn’t touch her, lowering her gun enough to focus on looking her in the eye.

“You’ve already underestimated me. Now look at you.” Brunt stares with a stubborn pride, chin raised. 

“Danny would be so disappointed.” Poppy adds. Her voice is cutting, far from calm. At Poppy’s comment, Brunt seems to finally crack, managing to shout almost an entire “Fuck you, bitch!” before a shot rings out, a perfect circle appearing in her forehead.

Poppy flinches, her finger off the trigger, and feels a sudden sharp pain in her forearm. Brunt slumps, a small knife falling out of her hand and clattering to the cement floor, the tip decorated crimson.

Shaw lowers his gun as Brunt slides against the car to the ground, leaving a sloppy trail of blood behind her head. 

“Are you okay?” A line of blood drips down Poppy’s exposed forearm, Brunt’s knife breaking the skin just enough to leave a short gash a couple of inches up from her wrist. She makes no attempt to stem the bleeding.

“Did you shoot her?” She blurts. Poppy was close enough to Brunt that the shot left tiny splatters of blood all over her face.

“She was gonna stab you.” Shaw’s consideration is lost on Poppy.

“I was going to shoot her.” Poppy begins to walk down the lane behind the restaurant, seeming to expect Shaw to follow.

“Well, you weren’t really in a position to-”

“I was supposed to shoot her!” Poppy shouts, turning on her heel to face Deckard as she does. Her rage is unexpected, and feels harsh on Shaw’s ears.

“Poppy-” The softness in his voice only aggravates her further.

“I told you, I don’t need your help.” She breathes heavily, choking on her own emotion.

“I was kidnapped too, if you didn’t notice.” He says, irritated. His patience is running out.

“And whose fault is that?” She retorts. He doesn’t respond, mouth opening and closing without sound. His frown softens, but doesn’t disappear. Poppy expected a screaming match, but Deckard’s silence begs for her own.

“I… I‘m sorry.” His guilt extinguishes her viciousness. Looking at him, his sincerity, his anguish, she considers resisting her own discomfort, confronting their past and their present and all that entails, but ultimately she recoils.

“You don’t need to save me, Deckard.” She says quietly, and pauses for hardly a second before fleeing.

Deckard stands, every step she takes echoing in this emptiness inside him, and watches her leave him again.


	16. Bored

The balcony of the apartment is only just big enough to fit two chairs, the two women sitting shoulder to shoulder, elbows tucked in to avoid spilling each other’s drinks.

“I’m really fucking bored.” Her drink drips a steady flow of condensation from her hand onto her lap, but she doesn’t move to stop it, letting it sink into her denim shorts. Her new, Dutch ID says Kat, but she’s already thinking of the next alias.

“Get a job.” Her companion, Sophie, retorts with a mocking smirk. 

“Alright, alright.” If you were to ask them how long they’ve known each other, they’ll tell you less than a year, but the congruence between them betrays their extended history.

“Seriously though, what do you do all day?” Sophie lays her head on the back of the chair, eyes closed.

“I’ve been doing a lot of reading.” Kat doesn’t share the same serenity, shoulders always tense.

“Sure.” Sophie’s skepticism, while amusing, only adds to Kat’s sense of dissatisfaction. She really isn’t engaged here.

“Maybe it’s time for me to move on.” Sophie doesn’t lift her head. Kat’s announcement, though not exactly expected, is unsurprising.

“You know you’re welcome here as long as you’d like.” Sophie assures.

“I know.” 

There’s a couple of minutes where the women sit in silence with their drinks, and Sophie speaks again.

“You know, why don’t you come along with me tomorrow? Get a taste of the action.” 

Kat sips the last of her glass, intrigued. “Your boss wouldn’t mind?”

“No, I can vouch for you.” Kat smiles. Sophie’s kindness and trust is an inevitability she doesn’t take for granted.

“That might be just what I need.”

-

“Who’s this?” The lackey at the door looks like he’s not going to like anything they say, but Sophie tries an explanation anyway.

“This is Kat. She’s with me.” He doesn’t move. Sophie begins to think of something more convincing.

From inside the room, a voice calls out, exasperated, “let them in, please, Roy!” 

The man, Roy, steps to the side with a frown. The unsuspecting warehouse is bustling on the inside, decked out in all sorts of toys. Kat is pretty sure they could hold up the entire country with the amount of firepower in this room. The owner of the exasperated voice is a just past middle-aged man with grey hair and a lined face that speaks more of wisdom than fatigue. 

“Sorry about that Sophie, Roy doesn’t know how to treat a lady.” The man seems as though he has apologised on Roy’s behalf before. His combination of clear authoritativeness and warm welcome feels odd to Kat. 

“And who might this be?” He asks, gesturing to Kat. She pulls her shoulders back slightly, instinctually. Sophie introduces her.

“This is Kat, we go way back. Kat, this is Mr Nobody.” Kat offers a nod, and notices that Mr Nobody offers a smile but not his hand, carefully keeping his distance from her.

He lowers his voice, speaking only to Sophie. 

“You know I like to pick who I work with myself.” He mutters. Kat tries to pretend she doesn’t overhear.

“I trust Kat with my life.” Sophie’s statement, heavy with meaning, sits uneasily on Mr Nobody’s ears. 

“That may be so, but that doesn’t mean I have to.” 

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for Kat to pretend not to be infuriated by the current conversation. Luckily, Mr Nobody takes this moment to step away from Sophie and approach Kat.

“Alright, Kat.” He smiles. Kat does not return it. 

“If you’re so trustworthy, which I’m sure you are…” He shoots a glance to Sophie, who stands with her arms folded across her chest.

“Then I just need to know one thing.”

“What might that be?” Kat steels herself to be hazed, asked about her willingness and ability to commit various crimes.

“Your real name.” 

“What?” She blurts defensively. Mr Nobody’s expression doesn’t change from cheerful. 

“You don’t really seem like a ‘Kat’ to me. I just need to know your real name. If you’re not willing to tell me, then I would invite you to find employment elsewhere.”

Sophie’s brow furrows, but she doesn’t speak. Kat swallows.

“You’re so worried about me being trustworthy, how about you?” Kat replies. Far from offending him, Kat’s question seems to amuse Mr Nobody.

“I’m in the business of secrets, your name will hardly be the biggest cover up I’ve been involved in.” He chuckles.

Sophie’s silence indicates her affirmation. 

Kat resists the urge to say a fake name, or sprint out the door, or shoot Mr Nobody in the face. None of those would end well.

It seems her only option is, “Penelope Capello.” She hasn’t said her name in so long it gives her goosebumps. 

Mr Nobody nods, replying with a politely curious, “Any relation to Mark Capello?”

Poppy can feel her eyes glaze over a little at the mention of her father. She clears her throat, once. “He was my father.”

“Ah.” Mr Nobody seems to consider her for a moment, and breaks into another grin.

“Welcome to the team, Penelope.” He extends his hand and shakes hers. “Can I call you Penelope? Penny?”

“Kat is fine.” She insists. Mr Nobody laughs, and walks back towards a conference table surrounded by screens, expecting them to follow. 

“Alright, now we’re all properly introduced, let’s get on with it.” Mr Nobody clicks a button and a series of photos appear on the screens around them. 

“This is Patrick Nyora.” The man in the photo has most of his face obscured by a thick beard, but his eyes are scowling. 

“He’s a drug trafficker, highly suspected but never caught. That’s where you two come in.” Mr Nobody continues. “We need you to go into one of his events and get some information so he can be... prosecuted appropriately.”

“What sort of evidence are we talking about here, photos, documents?” Sophie shows no ambivalence about taking the job.

“The lot. Ideally we want his phone. We need logs, messages, anything that gives us an idea of his operation.” 

“What’s the location?” Kat asks.

“A bar. He rents it out pretty regularly for these soireés where he hosts a bunch of other rich people. You two will fit right in.” Mr Nobody smiles. He comes off as if he has never experienced doubt.

Kat and Sophie exchange a look, and their participation is confirmed.

“Alright. Let’s do it.”


	17. Canapes

The canapes are dry. You would assume that multi-millionaires would hire competent catering services for their monotonous get-togethers, but you would be wrong. Despite their lack of quality, the drunk guests are eating them fervently in between their conversations, shouting crumbs all over each other. It reminds Kat of Alta, the flagrant display of wealth, the way the guests try to out-rich each other, winning no one’s approval.

The host is no exception. It’s all too easy for Sophie to infiltrate his entourage and lure him away from the rest with the promise of bathroom bliss. Kat, waiting for her opportunity to leave the company of a particularly boring suit, times her movement strategically so she bumps her shoulder into Nyora’s where the light is lowest. While Sophie pets and fusses, Kat slips her hand into his front pocket and retrieves his phone. The crowd hanging outside the bathroom entrance, all keen to covet Nyora’s attention, combined with Nyora’s drunkenness is enough for Kat and Sophie to easily slip away from him and towards the exit.

Sophie leads, the two of them acting drunk enough to avoid suspicion without being memorable. They’re metres from the exit when Kat’s eyes land on something she didn’t expect to see. It’s hazy from the cigarette smoke, but it’s definitely him. She stops in her tracks. But it’s hardly more than a second before she, remembering her position, hurries out the door and into the night.

-

He had been sitting there for hours longer than he would prefer. He would prefer not to be there at all - he’d never been much of a canape type. But once Mr Nobody explained the viciousness of this particular drug trafficking organisation, and how much time Shaw still had left to serve, Shaw felt compelled to assist. At least Mr Nobody gave him a pack of his favourite cigarette brand to help smooth the night along.

He’s scanning the crowd when he sees her, frozen like a deer in headlights. He blinks and she disappears, so he quickly rises and follows, pushing bystanders out of the way.

Outside there’s nothing but the still night air. Shaw’s breath leaves long and desperate plumes.

He could be mistaken, but he’s certain it was her.

He swears under his breath. Ran away from him again.


	18. Three

Mr Nobody never seems to be in the same place twice. The address he gives Sophie leads to an innocuous hair salon, but they are quickly directed to the back. A door, which upon initial inspection looks like a storage closet, turns out to be the entrance to a larger basement.

Downstairs, light floods in through long and narrow windows butting against the ceiling, leading to the street above. Mr Nobody is already speaking to a man who leans tensely against a bench that runs along the wall. He doesn’t need to turn his head for Kat to know who it is. 

“Morning, ladies! I was just debriefing with Mr Shaw, here.” Deckard turns to look at them, and offers Sophie a sullen nod before his eyes land on Kat. He stands reflexively, blurting a shocked, “Poppy!” before he realises what he’s said.

Poppy, or Kat, is astounded he would say her real name as thoughtlessly as he did. She greets him with a restrained, “Deckard.”

“You two know each other?” Mr Nobody asks. Neither of them want to explain, so there’s a few seconds of awkward silence as Mr Nobody waits for an answer.

“We’ve met.” Deckard finally mutters. As his shock fades his trademark resting frown returns.

Sophie looks to Kat, hoping for an explanation, but gets nothing from her guarded expression.

“Okay!” Mr Nobody gestures for Kat and Sophie to sit. 

“I was just about to explain to Mr Shaw our plan.”

“Plan for what?” Kat asks. Deckard doesn’t join them at the table.

“For taking something else from our friend, Patrick Nyora.” Mr Nobody brings the photo of Nyora up again, like they would have forgotten what he looked like.

“Why didn’t we take it the other day?” Kat takes her stress at seeing Deckard out on Mr Nobody, just a little bit.

“Well, the other day - excellent work, by the way.” Sophie offers a smile. Kat doesn’t. “You weren’t in the middle of nowhere. Which is where his warehouse is.”

Mr Nobody changes the photo to a picture of a small warehouse. It stands alone among paddocks.

“We have reason to believe from the evidence on Nyora’s phone that this building houses a drug manufacturing operation in the millions of dollars.”

“So what’s our job?” Sophie seems keen on the mission, asking excitedly.

“Shut it down.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Kat is becoming increasingly aggravated as the meeting progresses. 

“You three will figure it out. Get creative!”

Deckard, silent until now, exclaims, “Wait, us three?”

Kat’s head turns at the noise, but snaps forward when her and Deckard’s eyes meet for a split second.

“We thought we’d give Kat and Sophie some field experience after they did so well at the bar the other night.” The response to Mr Nobody’s proposal is markedly cold from two of his audience, but Sophie seems eager.

“So, who’s in?” Mr Nobody concludes with a smile.

“I’m up for it.” Sophie replies, and looks at Kat eagerly. Kat can’t deny the opportunity to get more field experience, and she can’t retain her pessimism in the face of Sophie’s muted pleading. And, as much as she hates to admit it, she can’t pass up a chance to be around Deckard again.

“Fine.”

Mr Nobody looks to Deckard. Kat doesn’t turn her head, but waits, heart beating, for his response. 

“I’ll do it.” He finally says, sounding disappointed as he says it.


	19. Him

“Okay, so what’s the deal?” Sophie and Kat are preparing for their visit to Nyora’s warehouse in their flat. Sophie is tying the laces on her combat boots, a task that always takes her longer than she expects. She resisted the urge to gossip in front of Deckard, but can’t contain her intrigue until after the mission.

“What do you mean?” Kat knows any attempt to stifle Sophie’s investigation is futile, but tries anyway. She is trying to braid her own hair, something she has never quite mastered.

“Come on.” Sophie rolls her eyes, shooting Kat a look from where she sits, bent over. 

Kat drops her hands from her hair and lets it fall from the beginnings of her braid. She sighs, giving up quickly. “Fine.”

Sophie smiles and waits. Kat brings her hands back up to her hair and begins.

“Okay, so you remember Danny?” Sophie leans back, her boots tied, and makes a disgusted face, sticking her tongue out.

“Yep. So Deckard was there for all of that.” Kat gestures and Sophie nods in understanding. 

“And then he was there when the whole Mary Brunt thing went down.” Sophie opens her mouth in surprise.

“Oh, he’s  _ him. _ ” Kat nods, and her and Sophie exchange a look, this new knowledge shifting Sophie’s perception of the situation significantly.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asks. Kat smiles at her kindness, but gives a small shake of her head.

“We can talk about how dogshit this braid is.” Kat jokes, and Sophie rises to take over, weaving Kat’s hair into formation with ease.

-

They report to another mundane small business where Mr Nobody has a room full of weapons for them to stock up on before their mission. The tension between Kat and Deckard has graduated to full-blown awkwardness, neither of them particularly comfortable in each other’s presence. Sophie, stuck in the middle, tries to make small talk as they survey the weapons and starts chatting amiably with Kat about nothing in particular. Then, much to Kat’s chagrin, she decides to bring Deckard into the conversation.

“What’s your opinion, Mr Shaw?” Sophie asks, her formality coloured with sarcasm. 

Kat tries not to let her apprehension show on her face. She anticipates a tortuous curiosity on Sophie’s part, a curiosity which seems unlikely to go over well with Deckard.

“About what?” He answers gruffly, and clears his throat. Guilt and stale irritation and the nerves that Kat never fails to stir in him feel thick and uncomfortable sitting in the back of his throat.

“Bike lanes.” 

“You’re asking me about bike lanes?” Sophie’s cheerfulness contrasts to Deckard’s withdrawal. She smiles, his expression is stoney.

“Just making conversation.”

“They’re alright,” Deckard concedes.

“Don’t you like bikes?” Sophie’s air of unthreatening interest, a nosiness borne out of innocent concern, helps her questions go over easier, despite its dubious authenticity.

“I prefer cars.” Deckard says shortly. Kat lets out a chuckle, remembering Deckard’s clumsiness exiting the sidecar while running from Mary Brunt.

“What’s funny?” Sophie asks. 

“Nothing.” She can see Deckard look at her out of the corner of his eye. He must know what she’s laughing at, but chooses not to laugh with her, returning his eyes to the wall of guns in front of him.

“Shall we go over the plan?” Sophie asks, overly cheerful.

“Yes.” Deckard answers quickly. As much as part of him loathes to say goodbye to Kat again, he’s looking forward to finishing this job as quickly and efficiently as possible so he can rid himself of the emotions he is forced to feel in her presence. 

Sophie rolls out a blueprint of the warehouse and they congregate around it.

“Alright, so we enter via the fence here,” Deckard gestures to the plan as he speaks. “Then we gain access to the warehouse via a window here. Then we sweep the place for key evidence. Plant the explosives. Head to the extraction point.”

Kat crosses her arms, shaking her head. “I’m not sure about that plan.”

“What would you suggest?” It’s the most words to her he’s said since they reunited, and Kat can tell his patience is paper thin. 

“Break in through this skylight. Unlikely to have security around it.” It’s not a bad suggestion, but Deckard can’t resist the temptation to make a snarky comment. 

“Oh, I forgot, breaking and entering was your thing.” Kat frowns at his tone. Sophie leans back from between them, preparing for a confrontation.

“I don’t know why you say it like that.” Kat bristles. His sarcasm harkens to his condescension the last time they discussed her penchant for murdering rich men in their mansions, and it makes her just as defensive.

“You just don’t have a good record of pulling things off on your own.” The sentence is out before he realises the weight of what he’s said, hanging in the air between them, heavy and sore. 

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?! Why are you being such an asshole?” Deckard realises his mistake, but her outrage escalates his frustration into anger. Every time he looks at her, he feels the sting of rejection all over again, the regret of taking actions with consequences he could never have foreseen.

“Don’t act like you haven’t given me a reason to be angry at you.” Kat shakes her head. When she looks at Deckard, she sees the shame of vulnerability, the fear of not being taken seriously, the terrifying possibility of intimacy.

“Fuck off. Always talking down to me, like you have a right to be sitting on that high horse.” Their voices are rising in volume with each statement.

“I saved your life!” It doesn’t do justice to what they’ve been through together to reduce it to that one statement, but Deckard is grasping to find something concrete to ground his feelings in.

“I didn’t ask you to!” Kat doesn’t see his struggle to define their experiences together. She just sees the single event he isolates, which ended in her feeling as though he took something from her.

“I saved your life, and all I get is good-fucking-bye!” It never occurred to Kat that Deckard could have been hurt by her leaving him in the alley behind the restaurant that day. In better circumstances, in a less antagonistic environment, she could have forgiven him for taking Mary Brunt’s death away from her. But as it is, she can’t accept his perspective. 

“You are so far up your own ass, you can’t see how you possibly could have hurt someone.” 

“I have only ever done right by you.” Deckard insists, for himself as much as Kat. In the second before she replies, Deckard is terrified that Kat will say exactly what his mind has been repeating since she left him. And she does.

“I lost Eliza completely.”

“Don’t pin that on me, I couldn’t have known they would follow me.”

“It was still your fault.”

Deckard goes quiet at Kat’s final accusation, turns and walks out.

Inside, Kat puts her head in her hands and takes a few deep breaths. She doesn’t believe what she said. As difficult as Deckard can be to read, she has a feeling it won’t be easy for him to dismiss it. It seems an unfortunate side effect of their acquaintance that they both seem to know exactly what to say to get under each other’s skin.

Outside, Deckard walks the city blocks until his heart rate settles. It’s happened before where he’s been in an argument, digging himself deeper into a hole he can’t seem to get out of, usually as a belligerent teen with his brother or sister. But when it’s with a sibling you can bounce back, and when it’s with someone you don’t care about it doesn’t matter. So what is she to him?


	20. Smoke

Deckard stays outside until it’s almost time to leave. Their preparations are done with very little speech, questions and answers short and direct.

The car ride to the warehouse is stilted. They go back over the plan, with some adjustments. 

“Window or skylight?” Sophie asks. Kat and Deckard avoid looking at each other, but both wait for the other to insist on their own approach. It’s Kat who breaks the standoff.

“I’ll go through the skylight. You guys can do the window.” Deckard doesn’t argue, doesn’t answer at all, so it’s settled.

The approach to Nyora’s abode is silent but for the ambient rustling of wildlife and trees in the breeze. The chain link fence around the warehouse is easily cut. There’s very little security given that Nyora wouldn’t expect anyone to take a particular interest in this unsuspecting building, so the trio is quickly inside the building through their respective entrances. It’s clear that Mr Nobody’s intel is correct, so they snap a few photographs and begin planting explosives.

Kat’s skylight leads directly into the office, where the lone security guard sleeps. He startles awake when Kat breaks in, the skylight opening with a bang behind him. She manages to swing down and land on her feet. The guard doesn’t have a chance to turn before Kat has her arm around his neck, his surprise and her technique leaving him unconscious after several seconds of muted wrangling. 

She starts rustling through drawers, looking for anything linking to buyers. There are a couple of spreadsheets, but nothing definitive. It will have to do.

Downstairs, Sophie and Deckard have almost finished planting the explosives. It’s a matter of minutes before they go off, so they have to be efficient.

Kat comes downstairs with her paperwork, and the three of them exit the building, heading for the extraction point. The whole operation is done in less than ten minutes, and a lot more successfully than anyone expected.

They jog for a few hundred metres until they reach the spot where the getaway car waits. About a minute goes by as they speed away before the bombs go off, the explosion mostly contained within the building. The orange glow rises as the building burns, then disappears behind the horizon, a pillar of smoke invisible in the black night sky.

Sophie leans her head back and naps almost immediately in the front seat. She’s always been one to crash after an adrenaline rush. Their seating position wasn’t their first thought as they piled into the getaway car, but Kat resents the fact that her and Deckard are together in the back seat. She can see him rubbing his knuckles absentmindedly out of the corner of her eye, out of anxiety or boredom. She wonders how it must hurt to punch after years of doing so.

After a few minutes, she can’t stop herself from speaking, despite Deckard seeming as if he has no interest in conversation with her.

“I didn’t mean what I said.” She murmurs, so the driver won’t easily hear. Both of them know what she means. Despite her earlier compromise indicating a level of remorse, Deckard is surprised by her abrupt apology, and takes a few seconds to answer. He’s tempted to reject her apology just for the sake of a grudge, but as soon as that thought enters his head, he realises its absurdity.

“Me neither.” Their eyes meet for a second, in the backseat of Mr Nobody’s oversized four-wheel drive, and both indulge in a moment of imagination of what could be under better circumstances. 

Deckard is the first to look away. They don’t speak again, letting their time together pass like smoke through fingers, neither of them willing to confront what they mean to each other.


	21. Marc

A man sits calmly at a table for two. He’s in a Parisian style cafe, French painted across the windows to instill a sense of exoticism. His dark and stubborn curls cling around his face, a pair of thick-rimmed glasses framing his squinting eyes as he reads off his phone.

Approaching him, a man of very different appearance.

“Hello, Deck.” The man says, a slight French inflection behind his speech, as Shaw sits.

“It’s Shaw to you, Marc.” He replies, eliciting a soft chuckle from his companion.

“I’ll accept that, but only because I’m asking you for help.” Marc seems amused, Shaw does not.

“What do you want?” Marc finally puts down his phone and turns to face Shaw.

“We’ve been seeing these mystery guys increasingly over the past few years. Their tech has only gotten better, way past anything we’ve got. Past anything anyone’s got.” Marc takes a sip of his coffee.

“What stunts are they pulling?” Shaw asks. 

“That’s the thing. They’re pulling all these jobs, but no one knows why. No one knows them, they’re fucking ghosts.” Marc explains, irritated. 

“Totally fucking up my operations.” He adds. 

Shaw shakes his head, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. 

“Don’t get self righteous with me, I know you far too well.” Marc smiles, but Shaw doesn’t allow him the pleasure of a smile in return. 

“So, what, you want me to be your personal errand boy to save your business?” Shaw sounds impatient, but he’s not angry yet. 

“As lovely as that sounds…” Shaw shoots him a cautioning look, and Marc smirks again. “No. You don’t have to report back to me. Just find out who they are, and give them a message that only Deckard Shaw can give.”

Shaw takes a second to process Marc’s request turned compliment.

“What’s in it for me?” Marc chuckles. 

“Just your usual exorbitant fee.” 

Marc takes another sip of his coffee while Shaw contemplates.

“You’ve got nothing for me to go off.” He complains.

“I have got one thing. A lot of these rumours seem to be circling around the Sunshine Club. Might be a place to start.” 

Marc looks through his phone briefly, nodding as he comes across the information he was looking for. “Frank Emerald, at the Sunshine Club.” 

He looks to Shaw, who shakes his head to indicate his unfamiliarity with the name.

“I doubt he has anything to do with them, but he probably knows something.”

Shaw hesitates. Marc interjects.

“Look, I know I’m not your best friend these days…” Shaw chuckles. “But I know these guys are bad news. For everyone.”

Marc’s plea seems so genuine, despite his clear conflict of interest, that Shaw is inclined to believe him.

“Please, Deck. Just ask a few questions and see what happens.” Shaw shakes his head at Marc’s light tone, minimising the risks of the situation.

“What happened the last time you said that to me?” Shaw asks, incredulous.

“You survived.” He and Marc exchange a smile, the real, nostalgic kind shared by old friends.

“Alright. I’ll do it.” 


	22. Sunshine

Despite its name, the Sunshine Club isn’t actually a club at all. It’s a bowling alley, tucked in a dodgy part of town. Its neon sign is the only that is lit along its street, promising hot dogs, popcorn and ‘The Best Arcade’. The Sunshine Club is infamous within its niche, so much so that it’s not uncommon to hear certain people refer to doing business with someone as ‘going bowling’ with them. Particularly those nefarious individuals with kids in tow.

Inside, an eccentric compilation of characters sit in its booths and alleys, discussing armed robbery over pinball machines, slipping behind the counter to a ‘staff only’ door where money is laundered.

Shaw sits at one of the tall, circular tables that litter the place, perched on the edge of a sticky and extraordinarily uncomfortable plastic stool.

“Can I get you something?” Almost immediately, a woman dressed in white polo and blue trousers appears beside him. Her smile is unsettlingly wide, pink lipstick almost glowing.

“Uh, I’m here to see Frank. Emerald. Could you let him know I’m here?” The woman leaves him, looking reluctant.

Within seconds another woman, identically dressed, places a bottle of water and glass on his table, rushing away before he can acknowledge her. He glances around the room, noting several groups chatting in various parts of the alley, most of whom are strangers to him.

One booth stands out, wholly because one of the members’ hair lights up white under the blacklight, hanging long and wavy down her back. She’s facing away from him, seeming to laugh at one of her companion’s jokes. 

As Shaw watches, he sees one of the employees approach and get the woman’s attention. She turns, and Shaw could swear her face looks familiar.

Shaw’s mouth opens involuntarily as he realises. It doesn’t close until she’s standing in front of him.

“Looking for a bowling partner?” She jokes, but it’s empty. Shaw still chuckles.

“We have got to stop meeting like this.” It doesn’t fully make sense, but both of them know what he means.

There’s a second where she just stands there, and he sits, and doesn’t know what to do with his hands or face or what to say.

“I-” “You-” They both begin at the same time, and cut each other short.

“I was just going to say, um…” There’s a million different ways he could end his sentence: an apology, a question, a thousand questions. “You’re blonde.”

Great choice. Fuckhead.

“I am.” She looks at her hair, falling over her shoulders, and rolls a piece between her fingertips.

“It looks ni-”, He clears his throat. “It looks good. It looks nice.” His mouth is suddenly very dry, but he doesn’t want to take his eyes off her long enough to pour himself a glass of water.

“What are you doing here?” Ordinarily he wouldn’t be so quick to give up his true purpose, but seeing her has disarmed him like little else would.

“I’m here to see Frank Emerald.” She smiles, amused.

“I usually go by Frankie, actually.” 

Shaw blanks, but recovers quickly.

“Frankie. Nice to meet you.” They both exchange a small smile.

She glances over her shoulder to her previous companions. “Shall we go to a booth?”

-

The thirty seconds of silence as they each wait for the other to break the ice is excruciating. The booths are surprisingly insular, so it really is quiet in there, despite the buzz outside.

“Have you been working here long?” He offers, and she smirks at the idea they could speak like regular people.

“Few months. Sophie wanted to move in with her girlfriend, so I decided to come home.” As stilted as the conversation is, there’s a definite friendliness in the way she gives information over to him voluntarily.

“Right.” He tries to reciprocate, but gets stuck in the experience of having her in front of him again and waits too long to speak. Instead, it’s her turn to ask an absurdly mundane question.

“What have you been up to?”

“The usual.” He feels as though this would be a good time to bring up the purpose of his visit. “I actually came here for your help.”

He brings up the photograph that Marc showed him, of an arsenal unlike any he’d seen before. 

“I’m looking for someone. A gang, maybe. Have you seen this before?”

She looks at the photograph, both of them awkwardly fumbling his phone as they avoid touching each other. 

“Not in person. I’ve heard the rumours.” Her eyebrows furrow slightly at the sight of the weapons. They retreat their hands back to their respective sides of the booth. Shaw holds eye contact, his investigative gaze only partly dulled by the fact that it’s her.

“I was told you might know something about it.” He states, flatly. He can see understanding click in her eyes as she realises he is watching for her to lie.

“Rumours say it’s a new group, but no one knows who’s behind it.” 

Deckard is unconvinced. Her lack of concern, the way her frown smooths as she speaks. If she’s not lying, she’s not being wholly truthful.

“I’ve been asked by a friend to look into this. I’m just asking questions.” He’s hoping that she’ll bounce off his own frankness, and she does, but not in the way he had hoped.

“I’m not in the habit of selling the information of my guests in my establishment.” She says matter-of-factly. He is tempted to challenge her on the idea the Sunshine Club is hers - it’s objectively an overstatement - but leans towards diplomacy. 

“Who said I’m buying?”

“We both know you’re not doing this out of altruism.”

“Are you?” The longer they speak, the more Deckard is struck by how much he missed their back-and-forths. 

“Of course not.” She offers a smile, but shows no sign of shedding her refusal. 

“I’m going to be pursuing this with or without you.” Deckard says, hoping that he comes across persuasive and amiable, but when he says it, it sounds flat. 

“I can’t help you.” She says, equally even in tone. Compared to their last encounter, both are remarkably calm, detached.

“Can’t? Or won’t?” Their shells crack, just enough that Deckard’s tone hints at irritation, and her expression darkens into a muted chagrin.

Neither of them seem able or willing to continue the conversation further once they’ve reached this impasse, both of them still swimming in the abruptness of their reunion.

Deckard rises suddenly, a business card blank but for a handwritten phone number left in his place. He pauses just a second on his way out of the booth.

“Let me know if you change your mind.”


	23. Cosy

Frankie paces her flat and listens to the phone ring; once, then twice. On the third tone he picks up, answering with a cautious, “hello?”

“I’m in.” She says. Deckard hesitates for just long enough for her to doubt he recognises her voice, but of course he knows it’s her.

“In on what?”

“I want to get to the bottom of this shit. With you.” Both of them pretend not to hear how her tongue curls awkwardly around those last two words. Even the suggestion of intimacy still sits unhappily in her mouth.

“What about your guests? Won’t they be pissed?” Every time they speak she gets a little better at reading him. She once might have taken his questions for criticism, but now she sees them as curiosity.

“They’ll live.” She waits for him to reply, to see if he is as interested as she is in working together, opening the door for all those potentialities they have glimpsed before and seeing what happens.

“Alright, where should we start?” It’s subtle, but there’s a clear gladness behind his words.

-

She suggests they meet at the Sunshine Club again to scope out their objective. Her office is a closet with a table and a couple of chairs, no windows. The Sunshine Club is a bowling alley first and foremost, and isn’t set up to accommodate the kind of goings-on that happen inside of it. Still, it’s functional. 

“This is cosy.” Deckard comments, not meanly. She scoffs.

“Thanks.” She gestures for him to sit, so he pulls one of the two chairs out from her tiny desk and sits. He lets his feet tap briskly against the floorboards as she busies herself with organising the myriad papers and objects around her desk. He’s never been one for anxiety, his stress generally expressed in energetic bursts rather than lingering, but around her he’s walking on eggshells.

“How does it compare to Amsterdam, coming home?” Every cordial sentence between them feels like a peace offering, and both are grateful each time the other accepts.

“Amsterdam was great, but it doesn’t compare to home. It’s good to see some old faces again.” She finishes her flurry of neatening and sits across from him. He frowns.

“That doesn’t worry you?” He knows he’s risking her ire, but he can’t help but still be defensive of her, despite all evidence that she hardly needs him to protect her.

“Not particularly. Poppy is kind of an open secret at this point.” He swallows the peak of concern that rises in the back of his throat at the mention of her real identity, a name that holds so much hurt for him now, among many other emotions.

“Not to everyone.” Not to him, at least. He wonders if Marc knew who he was sending Deckard to when he made his request.

“No, I suppose not.” She says, with some ruefulness, and averts her eyes. Deckard takes the opportunity to take a deep breath, his attention always wholly taken up in her gaze when it’s directed towards him. Like so many things before, he isn’t angry she didn’t let him know she was back in the country. He wouldn’t expect her to. But it doesn’t make it sting any less, and it’s lemon to the wound that he resents feeling hurt in the first place.

“You mentioned rumours?” Shaw moves the conversation along, not letting either of them stew in their respective regrets for more than half a second. Frankie appreciates it.

“Yes. People have been noticing these guys, but they’re like ghosts, they hardly leave a trace. The only things we hear are from bystanders, people who glimpse things by chance.”

“That makes it tricky.”

“It does.”

“Who exactly are these bystanders?”

“Rookies. I do have a contact who might know more. George Honey?”

“I’ve heard that name.” George Honey had been a minor figure up until the Brunt’s operations fell apart. He saw a gap in the market and jumped at the chance, hastily replacing the Brunt’s rigged backroom gambling with his own gambling den, which had been surprisingly successful. He and Frankie had been happy acquaintances for a long while, more so after her return to England.

“We can go see him tonight, if you like.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Despite his misgivings, it feels good to be working with her like this. They do make a good team.


	24. Opportunists

Honey’s den is accessible only by stone steps leading from street level to a large basement, right beside the Thames. It started simple, but in the months since its founding it has become a more elaborate operation, a main hall splitting into semi-private rooms divided by curtains that glitter under the industrial lights. 

George’s office is even further below ground, tucked down an even narrower stone staircase beside the entrance. The venue is bustling by the time Deckard and Frankie arrive, met by two security personnel at the door.

“What is your business here?” One asks, his lips curling into a surly grimace.

“Frankie Emerald. Here to see George.” She gives the man an expectant look, and he nods to his companion who disappears down the staircase to George’s office. Deckard gives the room a cautionary glance, seeing how the other visitors inspect the pair of them out of the corners of their eyes. Momentarily the security guard returns, and the two of them are led down to the even more dimly lit level below.

George’s office is relatively plain in comparison to the main area of the venue. There’s a white desk with a small document box, and a second table where George is tinkering with a series of containers and tubes. 

“Good to see you, Frank.” She and George greet each other with a hug as she enters. Deckard hangs back, conscious of being a stranger.

“Good to see you too, G. How’s the little princess?” Deckard feels a pang of jealousy at realising her and George’s closeness, though it quickly melts into the devastating consciousness that he’s only envious of the affection they share. He lets his eyes avert to George’s strange table of objects.

“She’s great. Just starting to walk, which is quite the frightening event.” George sees Deckard’s gaze lingering on his science experiment. “I’m brewing. Beer, you know. It’s a very rewarding hobby.”

“I’m sure it is.” George looks to Frankie and waits for her to introduce them. Frankie looks at Deckard, unsure. Deckard takes initiative.

“Deckard Shaw.” He and George shake hands. If George recognises him, he doesn’t let on.

“We’re looking into those oddly high powered weapons that have been popping up. You know the ones.” Frankie says. George’s friendly expression drops quickly to an anxious frown.

“May I ask who has put you on to this task?”

“We’re just concerned citizens, George.” Deckard lets her do the talking, but George refuses to be placated.

“This line of inquiry, I have to say... I’m uneasy.” 

“Can I make that decision for myself?” Frankie replies, gently.

“I don’t know a great deal. There’s been rumours.” George states, attempting to skirt her request.

“Frankie told me you might know something more than the rumours.” George doesn’t flinch in the face of Deckard’s pressing.

“I’m sure Frankie’s mentioned, but this group is like ghosts.” 

Neither Frankie nor Deckard are persuaded to drop the subject by George’s statement - he has yet to say something they haven’t already heard. George sighs, and seems to concede.

“Word around the den is that a few bosses have had material stolen. I’m not referring to drugs and guns, I mean nuclear, cyber weapons, the top level activities.”

“No evidence left behind?”

“Nothing. Not so much as a security tape.”

Frankie frowns in confusion. “Then who is spreading the word about them?”

“During one of the thefts, someone was dropping off some merchandise and managed to catch a peek of their weapons and such. How he evaded their notice I have no idea.”

“Who was it, exactly?” Deckard interjects. He may have been unaware of Frankie’s return, but his working knowledge of the majority of the London criminal scene is second to none. 

“One of those downtown fellows. From what I can tell he works for a variety of people, mostly playing courier.” George speaks slowly, in short bursts of syllables as he tries to remember snippets of overheard conversations.

“You’d be better off asking one of the people who were stolen from.” He concludes. “You know Nigel, Frank? Nigel Keating?”

“I’ve had some dealings with him.” Frankie keeps her tone flat, but her opinion of Nigel is clearly unpleasant.

“I’ll give him a ring, see if I can set up a meeting. He’ll know more than I do.”

Deckard and George exchange a nod. Frankie, satisfied with the amount of headway they’ve managed to make in one visit, makes the executive decision to wrap up the encounter. 

“Well, thanks for your help, G.” George’s reservations are still etched onto his face. He comes across as a person who cares with abandon, a privilege both Frankie and Deckard have not been privy to for a long time. 

“Be careful out there.” Frankie offers him an assuring smile.

“I’ll be fine. Always am.”

-

The night is cold and crisp when they exit, the sky not quite black with the lights of the city. Frankie and Deckard stroll side by side along the Thames, meandering back to his car without much urgency. 

“I love nights like these. London almost seems peaceful.” Frankie says. In the distance they can hear muffled sirens, car horns, drunken yells. A boat chugs beside them, interrupting the water with ungraceful churning. But Deckard can see what she means; for London, it is tranquil.

“Have you known Honey long?” Deckard asks, in an effort to keep her talking more than anything else.

“He used to work with Danny.” Frankie doesn’t explain further. Deckard feels as though he should apologise, knowing George was likely there for her in a way he wasn’t able to be, though he knows he doesn’t have anything to be sorry over.

“I see.”

The conversation stops. Frankie sighs a sticky cloud of steam as they turn away from the river and deeper into the streets. She wishes they could just both get over themselves and talk like regular people, but it seems like their windows of normality are always so transient. The past catches up to them, and the present is stuck in a painful glue both of them must work to dissolve. But neither of them have made the leap to looking to the future that doing so would entail.

Frankie becomes aware of a pair of footsteps behind them. No, two pairs, two different pairs of shoes that hit slightly different notes on the concrete. She walks closer to Deckard, just enough to communicate her concern. He glances towards her, but not behind. She can see it in his eyes; he’s noticed it too.

The night is suddenly less tranquil and more threatening in its emptiness. The alley they’re walking up is narrow, and the footsteps are creeping closer with every passing second. It could be bystanders, but the hairs standing up on both of their necks are begging them to consider the alternative.

Frankie slides her hand around Deckard’s forearm and tugs him around a corner. As soon as they’re out of the followers’ sight, they run. Immediately, the footsteps behind them, before still potentially benign, begin to run as well and confirm their danger.

Another corner, both of them planning the route to the car in their mind. A few more turns and they should get there, but they can’t lead their assailants straight to it. Gotta take a detour.

Take a left. The footsteps are accompanied with grunts, now, short shouts between the two men. They’re getting irritated, and they’re catching up.

Deckard pulls Frankie into what looks like a dead-end lane, an overflowing dumpster the only furnishing. In an effort to hide before the footsteps reach them, Frankie retreats between the far side of the bin and a brick wall, Deckard pressing himself in the same space. At the last moment, Deckard almost loses his footing on a piece of cardboard, only just having enough time to catch himself and freeze as their assailants pass by.

He’s got his hand leant beside her head to balance himself, his face all but inches away from hers. At first he turns his head to the side in an effort to construct some distance between them. But when he glances towards her, she’s looking right at him, and he can’t seem to look away. He doesn’t want to. She presses her palms flat against the cold, rough surface of the bricks behind her so she doesn’t grab him by the collar like she wants to. She observes her gaze flick between his eyes and his lips, and sees him do the same, utterly convinced of his sincerity. 

The footsteps fade into the distance, and they simultaneously remember their predicament. Exiting from their hiding place, they begin the cautious jog to the car, faces flushed with unmet potential.

In the car, Deckard pulls from the street hastily. 

“Who were they?” Frankie asks, catching her breath.

“No idea. Do you reckon that was for you or for me?” Deckard’s heart is still pumping, from their encounter as much as from exertion.

“Might’ve just been opportunists.” She suggests.

“Might’ve been.”

Their eyes meet across the dashboard, streetlights throwing sharp shapes against their faces, disappearing as soon as they appear. The tension breaks, and they share a laugh, chuckles from deep in their butterfly-filled stomachs, both of them just beginning to properly catch their breath.


	25. Etiquette

“So what do you know about this Nigel?”

“I’ve only met him a couple of times.” Nigel Keating is a typical, sleazy con man. He seems to have his greasy little fingers in everyone’s pie. She tells Deckard as much. He’s met men like that before, and they’re always far easier to crack than they purport to be.

In the middle of the day, Nigel’s office is quiet. His receptionist’s beige, almond nails click freely against her keyboard. Frankie gives her a nod, and the receptionist gives her a wink and waves them through to Nigel’s office.

Nigel is finishing a phone call as they enter. He looks irritated at the interruption, but seems to placate when he recognises Frankie. He gestures sloppily for them to sit. Frankie does, crossing her legs and placing her hands folded on her knee. Deckard stays standing.

“Frankie, what a nice surprise!” Nigel gives Frankie a wide smile, lips stretching over his teeth further than you would expect them to. “Who’s your friend?”

“Deckard Shaw.” Nigel extends his hand and Deckard shakes it, amusing himself with squeezing Nigel’s hand just a little too hard.

“Mr Shaw, your reputation precedes you!” Nigel says breathily, snatching his hand from Deckard’s grip. Deckard suppresses a smirk.

“We wondered if you might have some information to give us.” Frankie says sweetly.

“If I can help, of course I will be happy to.”

“We’ve been hearing rumours about some pretty nasty thefts happening recently. Would you know anything about them?”

Nigel’s brow furrows momentarily, in recognition, in apprehension. He plasters his face with a false smirk. “We’ve all heard the rumours.”

Frankie and Deckard look at him sceptically. 

“Do you know anything about the people behind them?” Frankie continues.

“Unfortunately, no. You know I would tell you if I knew, but sadly, I’ve got nothing for you.” His smile is empty and sharp. 

“Don’t bullshit me, Nigel.” She doesn’t speak angrily, but there’s a sinister tone to her calmness. She can tell that Deckard’s presence is concerning Nigel, and hopes to push him until that concern turns into capitulation.

“I’m not bullshitting, Frank. I can’t help you.” Nigel is committed to retaining an air of professional indifference. Deckard would have expected cracks to show by now, but Frankie knows better. Nigel’s weakness isn’t fear, it’s ego.

“I don’t appreciate you lying to me, Nigel. There are consequences for that sort of thing.” Frankie’s voice drips with condescension. Nigel’s smile falters, his expression turning stoney, spite igniting behind his eyes.

“This is  _ my _ office. You don’t disrespect me in here.” 

Deckard, silent until now, speaks. “I’ll do more than disrespect you if you don’t start talking.”

There’s several seconds where the three of them wait for the other to speak, suspended in tension. Deckard’s hand twitches towards his gun. Frankie’s muscles tense in preparation for movement. Nigel’s eyes flick between them, his expression remaining bitter.

In a moment, Nigel reaches under his desk and tries to pull a gun on them. An expectant Deckard has his weapon out as soon as Nigel’s hand jerks sideways, his weapon aimed before Nigel has his hands out from under the desk. Frankie stands abruptly, and Nigel is suddenly out-gunned. 

“Don’t be silly, Nige. Just tell us what you know.” Frankie implores. There is no trace of aggravation in her voice. Nigel sighs. He’s aware of his odds.

“It really is just rumours.” He says, more inconvenienced than anything else, returning to aloofness. He places his gun on his desk. Frankie lowers her weapon, but Deckard doesn’t.

“Better than nothing.” Frankie replies. Nigel nods, but hesitates. He gives a pointed look towards the remaining weapon. Frankie looks to Deckard and raises her eyebrows, and he promptly lowers his weapon and holsters it, looking about as sheepish as a highly trained assassin can look.

Nigel speaks, now that he has no guns pointed at him.

“One of my mates had a bunch of tech stolen. Just brought in from Europe and swifted away from underneath his nose.” Frankie hides a smirk at Nigel’s attempt to paint his own story as his ‘mate’s’. 

Nigel continues. “The rumours say one of his couriers managed to hide away, got a glimpse at all sorts of advanced weaponry. Only witness I know of.”

“Anyone know who this guy was?” Nigel hesitates again at Frankie’s question.

“Why do you want to know?” He asks, suspicious.

“We’re just tracking down this group, we’re not interested in the messenger.” Frankie assures. Nigel narrows his eyes, but accepts.

“Jim Mahoney, I believe.” Frankie shows no sign of recognition, but Deckard responds.

“Jim the Fish?”

“The very same.”

Deckard gives Frankie a look as if to communicate, ‘I know him. We know enough.’

“Thanks Nige. Wasn’t so hard, was it?” Frankie gives a bright smile. Nigel scowls.

“Next time show some etiquette, it’ll get you far in life.”

Neither Frankie nor Deckard gratify Nigel’s comment with an answer. They leave as swiftly as they entered, with a smile to the receptionist on the way out. In the elevator, Frankie rolls her shoulders forwards and back.

“That went pretty well.” Deckard remarks. Frankie hums in agreement.

“That man has never liked me. But that’s okay, because I don’t like him either.” 

She smiles in amusement and Deckard smirks too, even letting out a small chuckle. She feels the familiar tightness in her chest that he now and then causes, not unpleasant but not comfortable. The voice that would usually deride her for feeling so is drowned out by her contentment to be working with him again, overwhelmed by the sensation of interacting with him. Despite their past, she has never been able to shake the hold he has had on her since the moment she first saw him. 

“I could use a drink after that.” She comments, reading her watch to see the time is almost six.

“I know a place.”


	26. Idiots

The pub never changes. It’s always there, sitting in its tobacco soaked, beer stained glory, waiting for company. Tonight, it’s Deckard and Frankie that alight its patient steps. It’s far from busy, but hardly packed, plenty of room for the two of them to find their own corner in the hum of the crowd.

“This looks just how you described it.” She says, and for a moment Deckard doesn’t know what she means.

“You told me you were usually here on Friday afternoons.” She adds. A faint memory of their ill-fated jeep trip returns to him. It was transitory, their ability to speak easily. As brief as it was, it stirs a longing in him he finds as familiar as it is compelling.

She, too, feels a degree of sentimentality for the few hours where they naively thought it possible to escape their shared past.

“I can see why you like it here.” She says, gesturing briefly to their surroundings.

“It’s a bit old school, perhaps.”

She shrugs. “It’s nice. It’s comfortable.” Her choice at adjective comes off a little odd, particularly given the energy between them, on the edge of awkward, the two of them handling this thing between them with clumsy hands.

She stirs her drink with her straw, ice cubes clinking delicately against the glass.

“A productive day, today, then.” He says. 

“Yes, quite productive.” They’re both trying very hard to pretend that it’s strictly business between them, even though her choice to see him again, work with him again, means far more to both of them than they’re willing to admit.

“Next step is talking to Jim.”

“Do you know him?”

Deckard nods, raising his eyebrows in silent and mysterious amusement. “We’ve had dealings before.”

“Seems like my job is done, then.” She says, cheerlessly even as she attempts a smile. Deckard mimics her cheerlessness, his next statement hardly attempting to appear upbeat.

“Back to the Sunshine Club?”

“I suppose so.” There’s a pause, both of them wondering whether to say the words attempting to escape from the back of their minds. She speaks first.

“You don’t have to say more than you’d like to, but you must have some fascinating stories to tell with your kind of lifestyle.” 

Deckard smiles, happier to be recounting vaguely censored adventures than convincing her not to leave again. “I do.” 

The night devolves into progressively more drunk retellings of their respective exploits. Somehow, hearing about what she did in those months he spent believing she was dead makes him feel better about it, helps him to reframe her actions in his mind from malicious to practical. He pushes himself to open up more than he usually would, perhaps, his candour assisted by their drinking. She notices his effort, her gratification expressed as competitiveness.

When they finally stumble out of the pub both of them have trouble finding their balance, cheeks flushed.

“I haven’t been this pissed in a fucking while.” He says and they stop attempting to walk for a moment, just metres from the door of the pub. She laughs, holding onto the lapels of his coat.

“You are such an idiot, you know.” She blurts. He frowns, head jerking back in confusion. 

“Why’re you saying that?” She smiles, widely. Her makeup has left the corners of her eyes dark and smudged, but it looks deliberate in the dim lighting of the street.

“You’ve done so many stupid things.” Her amusement is contagious, and Deckard finds himself smiling too.

“And you haven’t?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m an idiot too.”

“We’re both fucking stupid, moronic, dickheaded idiots.” They share a loud, drunken laugh, and the tension they felt previously feels like a distant memory. He can’t imagine being anything other than this with her: easy, happy, together.

She must be thinking something similar, because she says, “I don’t want to be enemies anymore.”

“Are we enemies?” He’s still jovial, but he can see her becoming more serious. Her earnestness begins to dawn on him, and even in his drunken state he can feel for a moment his shoulders tense at what she is seeming to ask of him. But he doesn’t let it last long enough for her to start to regret her statement; he has to take the opportunity.

“Me neither.”

She still hasn’t loosened her grip on his coat, pulling him closer to her with gentle determination. Neither of them could quite pinpoint the moment where their lips meet, the boundary where one body ends and another begins blurring in their total enthrallment with each other. She feels like she couldn’t possibly take a breath, chest paralysed, not unpleasantly. For a moment with so anticipated for the both of them, once it finally arrives it is simply indescribable, all language failing to capture the sensation. The drunkenness probably doesn’t help.

Deckard drunkenly leans his weight on the rubbish bin behind him. Either the bin or his legs gives way almost immediately - he couldn’t say which. He falls, dramatically landing ribs-first into the bin and dropping on the ground with a breathy grunt.

“Fuck!” He exclaims, winded. 

“Are you okay?” She has her hand against her mouth, her shock quickly overtaken by amusement at his ungraceful predicament.

Their eyes meet as he begins to catch his breath and they’re laughing again, arms linked as they start their journey down the street, giggling into each other’s ears.

-

Neither of them remember clearly how they got home, waking bleary eyed and aching having fallen into their beds in the early hours. Her first thought is to check her phone, opening it to find a half-written, almost incomprehensible message to Deckard trying to express how much fun she apparently had last night. She rewrites it and sends the same sentiment in a form that makes sense to the human brain. 

Deckard, uncharacteristically worried about what to send her that morning, is relieved when she texts first, allowing himself a smirk as he reads. 


	27. Jim

Breaking into a suburban home isn’t something Shaw does often, and the novelty makes it enjoyable. When the inhabitant finally returns, Shaw has made himself at home, even opening up a can of beer to sip as he waits.

The man starts as the flick of a light switch reveals Shaw sitting at his kitchen table.

“Hello, Jim.”

“What are you doing here?” Jim’s voice quivers as he speaks, his face already covered in a sheen of sweat. He’s much taller than Shaw, all gangly limbs, awkwardly placed.

“Just wanted to ask you a few questions, that’s all.” Shaw’s gentle tone does nothing to soothe Jim’s rising heart rate. Quite the opposite, his calmness only exacerbates the other’s anxiety.

“About what?” Shaw gestures for Jim to sit opposite him. Jim walks to the seat slowly, as if he were in the room with a wild animal.

“I’ve been told that you’ve been witness to some nasty fellows.” Jim swallows conspicuously, Adam’s apple moving above and below a thin, white scar.

“I don’t-” Jim begins, but Shaw raises one finger and silences him.

“Just tell me what happened.” Shaw demands. Jim is frozen in place, muscles tensed and rigid.

“It was meant to be a normal drop off. But there were all of these lackeys. They shouldn’t have been there.” Jim is speaking as though he has said these words before, but he still seems uncomfortable saying them.

“With supercharged weapons, right?” Jim nods silently.

“So do you know who it was?” Jim is breathing heavily, but doesn’t speak. His eyes dart from Shaw’s face, down and up again, and his cautious eye contact is replaced by skittish avoidance. 

“I think you heard something. A name.” Under the table, Jim’s foot starts to tap against the floor. He shakes his head, lacing his fingers together. 

“A name, Jim.” Shaw presses, previous placidity descending into raw intimidation.

“I don’t know, I don’t…” Jim stammers, and Shaw shakes his head.

“That’s not a good answer.” Jim, sensing Shaw’s little patience wearing thinner by the second, speaks again.

“I don’t have a, um, name. I didn’t hear any, anything.” Shaw rises from his chair and circles behind Jim in a slow meander.

“Nothing?” 

“Nothing.” Jim hasn’t taken a proper breath since he arrived home, and it’s beginning to show in how he gasps for air between phrases.

Shaw stops, his head over Jim’s shoulder. “So, you’ve got nothing for me?”

Jim flinches hard as Shaw slaps his hands on Jim’s shoulders, gripping strongly. “As a colleague, I thought you might help me out. Man to man.”

Shaw’s grip tightens further and further until Jim is letting out tiny squeaks at the pressure. “I’m just trying to help out a friend, you know?”

“Okay, I-” Shaw releases Jim’s shoulders as he begins to speak, strained. Jim lets out a deep exhale. “I may have overheard something.”

“Go on.” 

Jim stretches his shoulders up and down, forward and back. He looks deflated.

“Just a name. I don’t know much, I swear.” Jim stalls, his hesitancy tightening his throat.

“The name, Jim.”

“Eteon.”


	28. Silk

They seem to be making a habit of having dinner together. Not that he’s complaining, but most of Deckard’s habits don’t involve regular interaction with other people. He had called her right as he got in the car, happy with the information he’d managed to glean from the unwilling Jim. He didn’t notice the lateness of the hour until he’d already pressed the call button, but she didn’t indicate any irritation when she picked up. To the contrary, she was enthusiastic. He suggested they get dinner so he can catch her up. He’s always preferred face-to-face communication anyway. She accepted his suggestion, and so he’s stuck following through with his own idea. At least the restaurant is nice.

Conversation with her comes as easily as water making its way downhill; it flows. Still, he feels himself having to convince himself to say things he’s out of practice saying. Like compliments, the genuine kind. But fear has never stopped him before. He’s decided to approach her like he approaches most aspects of his life - head on, unabashed. That’s why he doesn’t let himself hesitate when he feels the desire to ask her back to his place.

From many others this kind of question would come across as more of a demand, like their inability to imagine a ‘no’ is intrinsic to their request, confidence and entitlement combining into a molten, poisonous assumption. She’s heard many a command feigning as an inquisition. This does not feel like one of them. And it’s for that reason - the fact she knows he would accept her saying no - that she says yes.

Deckard’s house is a picture of contemporary design, sleek and bright in varying shades of grey and black. He leads her through the garage into an open living space through a wall entirely made of glass. So he can gaze at his car from his couch, she’s certain. He’s a gracious host, serving wine and fancy looking nibbles, but they end up being almost decorative. Their mouths are otherwise occupied by talking, and later, when Deckard plucks up the gumption to make a move, with each other. 

Later, her head lying happily on Deckard’s bare chest, she looks out on the London skyline, lit rainbow and gold, the night sky never fully black in the city. 

“I wanted to kiss you.” She blurts into the silence, and Deckard tilts his head down, opening his half-shut eyes to look at her.

“When we were sitting in that cold fucking car park, all covered in blood.”  _ But I couldn’t _ , she implies. Perhaps it’s her way of letting him know that loving her might not be the smooth ride he’s looking for that makes her want to tell him of her prior reluctance. Like he needs a warning, like he hasn’t seen exactly who she is already. 

He doesn’t reply right away, but pulls her closer and exhales.

“You’re alright, Frankie.” He finally says. And she believes him.

She showers, and decides to sleep in the silk and lace top she wore to dinner. Deckard’s pyjamas are all matching button-up sets, straight out of a department store catalogue.

“You look hilarious in those.” She says as she makes her way back to the bed. 

“What’s wrong with these? They’re comfortable.” Deckard retorts, opening his arms for her to slip into.

“You look like you’re having a job interview just to conk the fuck out.” He chuckles, his chest moving up and down underneath her cheek.

“Well, that slip cannot be keeping you warm.”

It’s her turn to tilt her head upwards to meet his gaze, her eyebrows raised evocatively. “Maybe that’s not the purpose.”

He smiles, finally a full, legitimate grin, all gums and dimples. His entire demeanour changes when he smiles properly, when he laughs. It’s as if he hides himself behind a smokescreen of machismo, and she only occasionally gets to peek behind the curtain. She wouldn’t call herself a naturally curious person, but she’d give almost anything to remove the wall he’s built around himself.

-

Frankie wakes to the warm morning sun, silk sheets smooth and comforting around her legs. She can still feel his fingers on her skin, lips on hers, but when she turns and reaches out the bed is unexpectedly empty. Squinting against the light, she surveys the deserted room, no sounds from the rest of the apartment betraying another inhabitant. 

Walking out of the bedroom, there’s no evidence of anything untoward, everything just as spotless as it was yesterday. Out of the corner of her eye she spots a notepad on the kitchen bench - a note. 

‘Be back by 11. Help yourself.’ It reads. A note would be comforting if not for the fact it’s 11:24 already and there’s no sign of him.

Deckard’s absence, less than half an hour later than he said he would be, shouldn’t be so concerning. But her gut tells her something’s up.

She tries to push her apprehension aside, makes herself a cup of tea and some toast. After another hour, though, it demands to be addressed.

‘I’m heading home. Thanks for…’ She begins to write and rewrite, overthinking her second sentence until she eventually settles ‘I’m heading home’, with no elaboration.

She assumes a response within an hour. That would be a reasonable expectation. But there’s nothing but radio silence. 

The next time she hears about him is when the regularly scheduled television programming is interrupted by a breaking news segment announcing the emergence of two terrorists: Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw.


End file.
